June 01, 2020

I reported 2 days ago that what happened to George Floyd was standard operating procedure for the police force there. It's in the Minneapolis police department's Use of Force Guide. The knee-to-neck restraint is accepted practice although it is banned by many police departments throughout the country because it's considered by many to be too dangerous. At this point it should be banned everywhere. In San Diego where I live this "carotid restraint" procedure is perfectly acceptable with the police department.The purpose of this procedure is to render the person unconscious. In the case of George Floyd, however, not only did they render him unconscious, they rendered him dead. Evidently in the other 44 cases, the people did not die.

All the protest and property destruction we have seen in the last week was over a twenty dollar bill! Where is that alleged counterfeit 20 dollar bill now? Has it been determined that it really is counterfeit? Has it been determined that George Floyd himself counterfeited it? Was everything that happened since that store owner reported George Floyd to the police really worth it? Obviously not.

So what led up to the incident that resulted in the loss of Mr Floyd's life. There has been a lot of video shown on TV. At one point Mr Floyd was actually in the police car, but an officer standing outside was struggling with him as he sat inside. So what happened there that provoked the police to pull him out of the car and put him in the neck restraint. Did Mr Floyd insult the officer? Did he knee him in the balls? Did he spit on him? Whatever he did as he was handcuffed inside the car in no way justified what happened to him. I understand how an officer, how anyone, can be provoked. But those officers need to be trained not to react to insults, backtalk, spitting or anything that a restrained man could do to provoke them. They need training to be saints. Not likely that police officers, who are after all human beings, could ever be expected to react like a saint would. Like Jesus would. Remember "Turn the other cheek"? But they need to try.

The whole situation was extremely unfortunate. But there have just been too many incidents regarding black men and a few regarding black women. The whole police community needs to upgrade its performance. But beyond that there needs to be radical change in the direction of this whole country. We should not go back to business as usual prepandemic and preprotest. America has to become a more compassionate society with regards to the least among us, the most vulnerable among us. FDR was right with the New Deal. Apologists for war tend to denigrate it saying that it was the Second World War that brought us out of the Great Depression. I believe that, if the Second World War never took place, the New Deal would have succeeded in pointing this country in a better, more salubrious direction.

What is needed now is a Green New Deal and Medicare for All. What we need now is Bernie Sanders' agenda.The destruction seen in the last week due to vandals and looters is nothing compared to what Mother Nature has in store for us if we don't address in a significant way the phenomenon of climate change. People need to be put to work doing constructive jobs, not just bartending, barista and gig work jobs. The infrastructure of this country needs to be rebuilt. There is so much constructive change that needs to happen. Instead we have a society where half the people could not cover a $400 emergency. How the hell can they recover from the loss of livelihoods caused by a pandemic?

COVID-19 demonstrates that there is a direct connection between the environment and our health. (Photo: World Learning/flickr/cc)

What do the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change have in common? Both are symptoms of human activity out of balance. They are existential threats whose morbidity and mortality are magnified by the habits of modern life. COVID-19 and climate change intensify the health inequities experienced by people of color and other vulnerable communities. Both threaten our future, but COVID-19 is, we hope, temporary. Climate change may be forever if we don’t change our ways. The factors that make COVID-19 so dangerous also move climate change toward the irreversible.

As a physician, I believe in the health benefits of treating the underlying cause of a health problem. COVID-19 demonstrates that there is a direct connection between the environment and our health. What we’ve learned through this pandemic experience is we cannot ignore warnings from scientists and public health officials. Prevention is more crucial than ever before.

Take air pollution, for instance. We know that burning petrochemicals creates the particulate matter and noxious fumes that lead to ground level ozone or smog, all of which greatly harm human health. In fact, a recent report from the American Lung Association found that nearly 5 in 10 people in the US live in counties with unhealthy ozone or particulate pollution. Particulate matter is linked to inflammation and many chronic diseases, which make a person more likely to die from COVID-19. Yet, instead of strengthening public health protections during the current public health crisis, the Trump administration is attacking safeguards that reduce pollution in our communities.

The lower levels of smog are a stark reminder of how "normal" activity causes pollution and threatens our health.

Look at before- and during-COVID-19 pictures of the air above virus hot spots. How quickly Mother Nature heals as millions of individuals stop driving gasoline-powered cars! The lower levels of smog are a stark reminder of how "normal" activity causes pollution and threatens our health. Look at what we could achieve if only we make smart decisions now to accelerate the transition to cleaner sources of energy and transportation.

I hope this knowledge motivates each of us to do what we can to conserve energy, invest in solar panels for our homes, trade in our gas guzzlers for electric vehicles, use heat pumps instead of oil or gas to heat our homes and bath water, and find other ways to get fossil fuels out of our lives in order to keep our skies that gorgeous shade of healthy blue.

Because of social distancing, we’ve learned what it means to be apart. Going forward, let’s invest our time, resources and energy into creating the safe, healthy future that all people deserve. Let’s stop tolerating the irresponsible dumping of pollutants into our air and our water. Let’s get the Environmental Protection Agency back to its mission of protecting human health and the environment, instead of suspending enforcement of environmental laws during a public health crisis. Additionally, we also need to stop handing over billions in taxpayer dollars to oil, gas, and coal companies.

We can spend more on green infrastructure and less on military machinery. We can have the moral courage to allow the price of things we buy to reflect the true cost to the environment, our health, and to the well-being of the people making those things; while at the same time, making sure that all of us have access to our basic needs for food, shelter, medical care and meaningful work.

While we’re at it—this is a hard one-- we can admit that it’s not just the fossil fuel industry that is the problem. We buy what they sell, an action with moral and physical consequences. These months with COVID-19 have taught us we are capable of making healthier choices when our lives depend upon it.

Let’s pay attention to what COVID-19 is trying to tell us about climate change. It’s pointing us to a healthier and more resilient world if we chose to listen. We have no time to lose.

Janis Petzel, MD is a psychiatrist from Islesboro, Maine who speaks and writes about climate and health. She is a Climate Ambassador for Physicians for Social Responsibility.

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May 16, 2020

Bill Gates thinks so. He's been warning world leaders and everyone else since his now famous Ted talk in 2015. However, the US has been spending over a trillion dollars a year on preparations for war, and nothing on preparations for a pandemic until one was upon us. Now it is costing trillions of dollars dwarfing the defense budget. Not to be outdone, the military-industrial complex is turning its attention to preparations for war with China which happens to be the current bogieman. China sort of snuck up on us while Lockheed Martin and others were promoting east European countries for membership in NATO with the incentive that they would locate defense plants there contributing to their economic development. They had been successful in locating subcontractors in every Congressional district so that they would have plenty of support from Congress for their projects such as the F-22 and the F-35. Now they would have subcontractors in places like Romania and Poland so that enthusiastic leaders in those countries would be cheerleading NATO membership.

So as they turn their attention towards China, Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors will no doubt be promoting location of defense plants in southeast Asia and the Pacific region. It has to be this way because Big Pharma does not have any interest in making vaccines or preparing for a pandemic. There's no money in it. That's why it falls to the lot of the Gates foundation, which doesn't need to make a profit, to spend their endowment supporting vaccine development and public health. The military-industrial complex has found a sure thing in the promotion of preparedness for war even though today it's becoming increasingly evident that the billions spent on hardware for war is money wasted when the real threats come from pandemics, global warming and extreme poverty in the world. The problem is there is no profit in providing solutions to these problems. Only people like Bill Gates who as private citizens have large sums of money to spend are even interested in finding and implementing solutions.

In March 2015, Mr. Gates warned in a widely watched TED Talk that an infectious disease pandemic posed a greater threat to the world than a nuclear war because nations have built so few defenses. He called for an international warning-and-response system with mobile units of medical personnel, rapid diagnostics, drug stockpiles and technologies to produce vaccines in months. So what did the world do in response: NOTHING. What has the world done in response to the global warming crisis: NOTHING. What has the world done to mitigate extreme poverty: NOTHING. What has the world done to foment war and aggravate tensions among nations: EVERYTHING.

At least 70.8 million people around the world have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are nearly 25.9 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18. There are also millions of stateless people, who have been denied a nationality and lack access to basic rights such as education, health care, employment and freedom of movement. What is the US doing to ameliorate the situations of these people: NOTHING. These children growing up in these harsh conditions are the future haters of the US. They are the future ISIS and al Qaeda fighters. The US is spending trillions on preparations for war in order to fight these children when they grow up in a few short years. Climate change is only going to aggravate the conditions of the poorest people in the world.

Governor Cuomo has said that his approach to solving the pandemic crisis is based on science and data driven. This in and of itself puts him at odds with President Trump and all his anti-intellectual and conspiracy theory driven followers. Trump and the neocon Republicans have been profiting from whipping up anti-intellectual hysteria for years. Their vendetta against Hillary Clinton was because she was too competent, she was too smart. They preferred a dumb ass like Trump. It's this mentality along with a military establishment and military mindset that glorifies war that will probably mean that an armageddon of one sort or other - whether it is ongoing pandemics, climate change or nuclear war - will determine the fate of the earth and humanity.

A climate placard during a protest carried out by the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion in front of the House of Representatives in The Hague, Netherlands on April 17th, 2020. (Photo: Romy Arroyo Fernandez/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Nearly 40 mayors representing more than 700 million people in cities across the globe are calling for a transformative recovery from the Covid-19 crisis that fundamentally alters global economic and energy systems, warning that a mere return to "business as usual" means accepting a world barreling toward climate catastrophe.

The mayors on Thursday signed on to a statement of principles that aims to provide a framework for the "transition to a more sustainable, low-carbon, inclusive and healthier economy for people and the planet."

"Covid-19 has laid bare the systemic inequities too often found at the heart of our communities—and as we start to emerge from this crisis, we must rebuild an economy that truly works for everyone," said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, chair of C40 Cities, the coalition of mayors that crafted the 9-point statement.

Mxolisi Kaunda, mayor of Durban, South Africa, called on cities to "approach the future with a new vision, a vision of a prosperous and climate-just society for all."

"During this time we are forced to confront the fragility of the current economic system that has created a vastly unequal society and how that inequality makes it difficult for our social and health relief systems to respond effectively," said Kaunda. "Let us not lose the painful lessons that we have had to learn during this pandemic and use those rather to become cities that are more resilient to future disasters, including climate change."

The recovery should not be a return to 'business as usual'—because that is a world on track for 3°C or more of over-heating;

The recovery, above all, must be guided by an adherence to public health and scientific expertise, in order to assure the safety of those who live in our cities;

Excellent public services, public investment, and increased community resilience will form the most effective basis for the recovery;

The recovery must address issues of equity that have been laid bare by the impact of the crisis – for example, workers who are now recognized as essential should be celebrated and compensated accordingly and policies must support people living in informal settlements;

The recovery must improve the resilience of our cities and communities. Therefore, investments should be made to protect against future threats—including the climate crisis—and to support those people impacted by climate and health risks;

Climate action can help accelerate economic recovery and enhance social equity, through the use of new technologies and the creation of new industries and new jobs. These will drive wider benefits for our residents, workers, students, businesses and visitors;

We commit to doing everything in our power and the power of our city governments to ensure that the recovery from Covid-19 is healthy, equitable, and sustainable;

We commit to using our collective voices and individual actions to ensure that national governments support both cities and the investments needed in cities, to deliver an economic recovery that is healthy, equitable, and sustainable;

We commit to using our collective voices and individual actions to ensure that international and regional institutions invest directly in cities to support a healthy, equitable, and sustainable recovery.

"The only parallel to what we're facing right now is the Great Depression," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. "Against that kind of challenge, half-measures that maintain the status quo won't move the needle or protect us from the next crisis. We need a New Deal for these times—a massive transformation that rebuilds lives, promotes equality, and prevents the next economic, health, or climate crisis."

The mayors' statement came after new Oxford University research published this week found that "green stimulus" spending on sustainable energy projects would be more effective than conventional stimulus measures in repairing the widespread economic damage done by the coronavirus pandemic.

"The Oxford study compared green stimulus projects with traditional stimulus, such as measures taken after the 2008 global financial crisis, and found green projects create more jobs, deliver higher short-term returns... and lead to increased long-term cost savings," the Guardianreported.

Cameron Hepburn, lead author of the new study, told Reuters on Tuesday that his research shows "we can choose to build back better, keeping many of the recent improvements we've seen in cleaner air, returning nature and reduced greenhouse gas emissions."

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April 30, 2020

A Jobs Program for Inessential Workersby John Lawrence, April 30, 2020

Turn inessential workers into essential workers by putting them to work building green infrastructure. This is essential work that is not getting done. Much of the previous inessential work they did is better left undone even in a recovery. It is still inessential. It'll always be inessential compared to what needs to be done in creating and building green infrastructure. Building out solar and wind renewable energy could employ thousands if not millions of people. Repairing roads, bridges, waterways, clean water systems, airports, railroads and all other infrastructure could employ millions. This is essential work that has remained undone despite the fact that the American Society of Civil Engineers has given the US a D rating for infrastructure. High speed rail needs to be built. The widespread adoption of electric cars has to be mandated, and construction of a national electric vehicle charging network to power them has to be built.

Unemployed people still need jobs. Mark Cuban said on CNN this morning that there should be a jobs program similar to that of the New Deal. He is exactly right although he didn't make the necessary connection about the essential work that's still being left undone and the inessential work that doesn't need to be done even in a recovery. Forget Cuban's sports and entertainment enterprises. I hate to tell you that they are basically inessential. What is essential is greatly expanding the public health undertakings of the Federal government which has been totally behind the curve in this pandemic.

We must ask ourselves what is essential and not go back to a new normal in which all the inessential businesses of the past are brought back just in order to provide employment to the millions who have lost their jobs. The pre-pandemic economy was 70% consumerism. The economy post epidemic should be much less a consumerist economy and much more an investment economy. The four components of gross domestic product are personal consumption, business investment, government spending, and net exports. Of these government spending must be ramped up to provide the essential jobs in infrastructure building as well as in the areas that the pandemic has made clear are indeed essential: health care, education, transportation, agriculture.

Government spending must go up; personal consumption must go down. It's as simple as that. As for business investment, it's a lost cause as business will only do what's profitable for itself as has been made abundantly clear. Investment in fossil fuels and plastics which the big oil companies are making is only destructive to a green economy, not constructive. As far as exports are concerned, the dollar has already been weakened as much as it could possibly be by zero interest rates, so increased exports, although desirable, are not likely to happen any time soon.

Private enterprise knows only one thing in terms of the economy "reopening": get back to consumer spending. It ain't going to happen. People are still afraid of the virus. The pandemic is not over. They will use their money to pay off debts instead of going in debt to the hilt like they are used to. People will save their money instead of entertaining themselves to death. Why? Maybe they have learned their lesson that a high employment economy predicated on the fact that people will always have a job and always have a prepensity to consume is just a chimera. Rather than living paycheck to paycheck, I hope people will understand that there may come a rainy day, and they need to save for that. That lesson has really been brought home by the coronavirus pandemic.

The true heroes are essential workers not the military. The military itself was brought to its knees by COBID-19. There is a lesson there. It's more important to spend our collective money on preparing for the coming pandemic of global warming than on a bloated military. It is more important to house the homeless and guarantee the economic rights of shelter and health care to all Americans as in the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights. It is more important to help people all over the world escape from extreme poverty because poverty breeds health crises which then can spread all over the world. It's more important to make peace with our rivals rather than try to control them with military threats and sanctions.

May the next President (and I hope to heaven that it's not Donald Trump) see the light of a more rational, compassionate and humane world, one more concerned about the health and welfare of all the world's peoples. I hope Governor Cuomo's values of being tough, smart, disciplined and most importantly loving spread to every corner of US and world society, and we get on with essential business instead of the inessential business of amusing, entertaining and consuming ourselves to death.

April 28, 2020

These are the fateful words of Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel Prize Laureate and the first and only President of the Soviet Union. Recently, he recalled how the threat of nuclear war was reduced by the treaties in the 1980s made possible by his friendly relationship with Ronald Reagan. Writing in Time magazine, he said, "The leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union declared that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought." Despite the fact that the Cold War was declared to be over, the neocons running foreign policy today have been doing their best to create another one. The pandemic has made it clear that there are more important challenges than U.S.-Russian rivalry, and that the world has more to gain by cooperating even with supposed enemies or rivals than it does by perpetuating idiotic animosities. We have common enemies that affect us all with the coronavirus pandemic being just one of them.

Gorbachev mentioned "poverty and inequality, the degradation of the environment, the depletion of the earth and the oceans." Global warming is an existential threat that must be addressed now or there won't be a habitable earth left to fight over. "We have so far failed to develop and implement strategies and goals common to all mankind." Not only that the U.S. under Trump has retreated from any kind of cooperation with the other nations of the earth even our supposed allies. Instead U.S. foreign policy has been based on ordering other nations around as if we were the supreme bully. Trump's latest blunder is to defund the World Health Organization (WHO) in the middle of a pandemic.

"Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, adopted by the U.N. in 2000, has been extremely uneven." The U.S. under Trump does not really support the U.N. in any way because it wants to be the ruler of nations not part of an organization that attempts to have a forum for the cooperation of nations. The United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000 commits world leaders to combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women. The Eight Millennium Development Goals are:

to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;

to achieve universal primary education;

to promote gender equality and empower women;

to reduce child mortality;

to improve maternal health;

to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;

to ensure environmental sustainability; and

to develop a global partnership for development.

I had never even heard of the Eight Millennium Development Goals although I think I'm pretty well informed. All of the media time spent on Trump's self-serving bragging could have been better spent informing us about this WHO program. But instead the media spends its time either chastising Trump's stupidity or praising his glory depending on which channel you watch. He has changed from campaign rallies to hour long daily commercials for himself.

"What we urgently need now is a rethinking of the entire concept of security. Even after the end of the Cold War, it has been envisioned mostly in military terms." Yes, military hubris crowds out any prospect of peace let alone a prospect of eliminating extreme poverty. Bill Gates is singlehandedly doing his best to eliminate poverty and disease in the world. He basically is a one man United Nations surrogate. He presciently tried to warn us of the pandemic in a Ted talk. Now he is spending millions of his own money on developing a coronavirus vaccine. There are some good people in the world - even billionaires. That I am sure of. It's just that not a lot of them occupy positions of power in the U.S. government.

Gorbachev continued: "The overriding goal must be human security: providing food, water and a clean environment and caring for people's health. To achieve it, we have to develop strategies, make preparations, plan and create reserves. But all efforts will fail if nations continue to waste money by fueling the arms race. I'll never tire of repeating: we need to demilitarize world affairs, international politics and political thinking."

Gorbachev is calling on national leaders to cut military budgets by 10% to 15%. It is not enough. The mindset, even among Democrats, is that we need a huge military to defend ourselves from perceived threats and perceived enemies. They don't have the mindset that they could make the world a better place by defusing tensions among nations that they perceive as threats. It might start by apologizing to Iran for overthrowing their democratically elected leader Mossaddegh and installing the brutal Shah. That would go a long way to establishing a peaceful relationship with Iran. It could start there. Instead the U.S. only fuels tensions by applying sanctions and carrying on like the rest of the world should bow down to the almighty dollar.

April 27, 2020

Silver Lining of the COBID Pandemic: Cleaner Air and Less Global Warming

by John Lawrence, April 27, 2020

Because of less economic activity, the air is cleaner all around the world. Researchers have seen a drop in air pollutants as a result of fewer cars on the road and less exhaust from factories due to the shelter-in-place orders issued by world governments. While we've heard a lot about the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, which is emitted into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, nitrogen pollution is a particularly potent greenhouse gas as it is over 300 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. NASA satellite data shows recent nitrogen dioxide levels are down about 30% over major metropolitan areas including Washington, DC, New York City, Philadelphia and Boston. Nitrogen dioxide is a major cause of air pollution which results in lung disease. People living in environments where there is much air pollution already have compromised pulmonary systems and are more vulnerable to lung disease and the coronavirus which attacks lungs. Breathing polluted air is an underlying condition.

Carbon dioxide emissions are also down. In China, carbon emissions were down an estimated 18 percent between early February and mid-March due to reductions in coal consumption and industrial output. This saved some 250 million metric tons of carbon pollution - more than half the annual carbon emissions of the United Kingdom. Los Angeles’s notorious smog has lifted, giving way to clear blue skies and, according to Environmental Protection Agency data for March, better air quality than the city has experienced in almost 40 years. Carbon monoxide emissions are down by 50% in New York. You can see the stars in Delhi, a city where people wore masks long before the coronavirus to protect themselves from thick car fumes and industrial exhaust.

So as economies around the world suffer, gasses which contribute to air pollution and global warming are down. While governments around the world lollygag with GHG reduction, it takes a pandemic to actually do something about it. Even though the pandemic may destroy economies, it might save the planet from an even more disastrous fate - global warming. However, once economies reopen, pollution and GHG emissions are very likely to increase back to their former levels or even higher. If only there were a way to keep global warming at the current level and even to reduce it further which must be done if planet earth is to escape the fate of runaway global warming, a fate much worse than the worst pandemic.

How ironic that the 50th anniversary of Earth Day saw improvements to the environment while lockdowns around the world prevented people from being out in the environment. There has been a glimpse into a cleaner world in which electric vehicles could keep the air as clear as it is now every day. Yet governments of the world tarry, hesitant to do anything to disrupt economic activity. Amid these small gains for air quality, President Trump has directed the EPA to rewrite the air quality regulations he says pose "unnecessary and outdated barriers to growth." This will undoubtedly hasten air quality destruction and GHG pollution especially as the nation reopens its economy. Trump's 2019 repeal of the Clean Power Plan implemented under former President Barack Obama was replaced with the Affordable Clean Energy Rule in 2019. The Environmental Protection Network says that that replacement "will cause more people, especially in front-line communities, to have heart attacks; suffer from asthma, bronchitis, and other respiratory illnesses; visit a hospital; and miss days of work and school."

Trump wants to restart the economy at any price including sacrificing more people to COBID-19. Some will succumb to the virus. Others will develop lung cancer from the pollutants in the air. Still others will get various cancers from the lack of clean water being served up in several locations around the country, not just Flint, Michigan. Among his many environmental sins, Trump has also tried to force California to lower its tailpipe emission standards. Courts are in the process of dealing with that. Hopefully, more rational and compassionate heads will prevail when Trump is voted out of office, the US rejoins the Paris Accords and reenters the nuclear agreement with Iran. Tensions around the world need to be reduced so that nations can get on with the business of cooperating over current and future pandemics as well as the present and future danger of global warming. These issues are way more important than relying on the military to solve every threatening situation. The military is helpless to do anything about either a pandemic or global warming. In fact it is only making the real dangers to society and the human race worse and consuming trillions of dollars that could be put to better use elsewhere. We need to get our priorities straight.

April 24, 2020

Both our economy and the environment are in crisis. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few while the majority of Americans struggle to get by. The climate crisis is worsening inequality, as those who are most economically vulnerable bear the brunt of flooding, fires, and disruptions of supplies of food, water, and power.

At the same time, environmental degradation and climate change are themselves byproducts of widening inequality. The political power of wealthy fossil fuel corporations has stymied action on climate change for decades. Focused only on maximizing their short-term interests, those corporations are becoming even richer and more powerful — while sidelining workers, limiting green innovation, preventing sustainable development, and blocking direct action on our dire climate crisis.

Make no mistake: the simultaneous crisis of inequality and climate is no fluke. Both are the result of decades of deliberate choices made, and policies enacted, by ultra-wealthy and powerful corporations.

We can address both crises by doing four things:

First, create green jobs. Investing in renewable energy could create millions of family sustaining, union jobs and build the infrastructure we need for marginalized communities to access clean water and air. The transition to a renewable energy-powered economy can add 550,000 jobs each year while saving the US economy $78 billion through 2050. In other words, a Green New Deal could turn the climate crisis into an opportunity - one that both addresses the climate emergency and creates a fairer and more equitable society.

Second, stop dirty energy. A massive investment in renewable energy jobs isn’t enough to combat the climate crisis. If we are going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must tackle the problem at its source: Stop digging up and burning more oil, gas, and coal.

The potential carbon emissions from these fossil fuels in the world’s currently developed fields and mines would take us well beyond the 1.5°C increased warming that Nobel Prize winning global scientists tell us the planet can afford. Given this, it’s absurd to allow fossil fuel corporations to start new dirty energy projects.

Even as fossil fuel companies claim to be pivoting toward clean energy, they are planning to invest trillions of dollars in new oil and gas projects that are inconsistent with global commitments to limit climate change. And over half of the industry’s expansion is projected to happen in the United States. Allowing these projects means locking ourselves into carbon emissions we can’t afford now, let alone in the decades to come.

Even if the U.S. were to transition to 100 percent renewable energy today, continuing to dig fossil fuels out of the ground will lead us further into climate crisis. If the U.S. doesn’t stop now, whatever we extract will simply be exported and burned overseas. We will all be affected, but the poorest and most vulnerable among us will bear the brunt of the devastating impacts of climate change.

Third, kick fossil fuel companies out of our politics. For decades, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP have been polluting our democracy by pouring billions of dollars into our politics and bankrolling elected officials to enact policies that protect their profits. The oil and gas industry spent over $103 million on the 2016 federal elections alone. And that’s just what they were required to report: that number doesn’t include the untold amounts of “dark money” they’ve been using to buy-off politicians and corrupt our democracy. The most conservative estimates still put their spending at 10 times that of environmental groups and the renewable energy industry.

As a result, American taxpayers are shelling out $20 billion a year to bankroll oil and gas projects – a huge transfer of wealth to the top. And that doesn’t even include hundreds of billions of dollars of indirect subsidies that cost every United States citizen roughly $2,000 a year. This has to stop.

And we’ve got to stop giving away public lands for oil and gas drilling. In 2018, under Trump, the Interior Department made $1.1 billion selling public land leases to oil and gas companies, an all-time record – triple the previous 2008 record, totaling more than 1.5 million acres for drilling alone, threatening multiple cultural sites and countless wildlife. As recently as last September, the Trump administration opened 1.56 million acres of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, threatening Indigenous cultural heritage and hundreds of species that call it home.

That’s not all. The ban on exporting crude oil should be reintroduced and extended to other fossil fuels. The ban, in place for 40 years, was lifted in 2015, just days after the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement. After years of campaigning by oil executives, industry heads, and their army of lobbyists, the fossil fuel industry finally got its way.

We can’t wait for these changes to be introduced in 5 or 10 years time — we need them now.

As if buying-off our democracy wasn’t enough, these corporations have also deliberately misled the public for years on the amount of damage their products have been causing.

For instance, as early as 1977, Exxon’s own scientists were warning managers that fossil fuel use would warm the planet and cause irreparable damage. In the 1980s, Exxon shut down its internal climate research program and shifted to funding a network of advocacy groups, lobbying arms, and think tanks whose sole purpose was to cloud public discourse and block action on the climate crisis. The five largest oil companies now spend about $197 million a year on ad campaigns claiming they care about the climate — all the while massively increasing their spending on oil and gas extraction.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans, especially poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, already have to fight to drink clean water and breathe clean air as their communities are devastated by climate-fueled hurricanes, floods, and fires. As of 2015, nearly 21 million people relied on community water systems that violated health-based quality standards.

Going by population, that’s essentially 200 Flint, Michigans, happening all at once. If we continue on our current path, many more communities run the risk of becoming “sacrifice zones,” where citizens are left to survive the toxic aftermath of industrial activity with little, if any, help from the entities responsible for creating it.

Climate denial and rampant pollution are not victimless crimes. Fossil fuel corporations must be held accountable, and be forced to pay for the damage they’ve wrought.

If these solutions sound drastic to you, it’s because they are. They have to be if we have any hope of keeping our planet habitable. The climate crisis is not a far-off apocalyptic nightmare — it is our present day.

Australia’s bushfires wiped out a billion animals, California’s fire season wreaks more havoc every year, and record-setting storms are tearing through our communities like never before.

Scientists tell us we have 10 years left to dramatically reduce emissions. We have no room for meek half-measures wrapped up inside giant handouts to the fossil fuel industry.

We deserve a world without fossil fuels. A world in which workers and communities thrive and our shared climate comes before industry profits. Working together, I know we can make it happen. We have no time to waste.

A resident wearing a face mask stands next to a mural featuring Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and her quote "You're never too young to save the world" on March 30, 2020 in the Trullo district of Rome during Italy's lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images)

The 50th annual global Earth Day coming amid the coronavirus pandemic sparked fresh demands from Fridays for Future founder Greta Thunberg, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, and others for the international community to simultaneously tackle the COVID-19 and climate crises.

"Today is Earth Day and that reminds us that the climate and environmental emergency is still ongoing and we need to tackle both the corona pandemic, this crisis, at the same time as we tackle climate and environmental emergency, because we need to be able to tackle two crises at once," said 17-year-old Thunberg.

She emphasized that while it is always "important" and "essential" to be guided by science, "during crises like this it is even more important that we listen to scientists, science, and to the experts. That goes for all crises, whether it's the corona crisis or whether it's the climate crisis."

Thunberg's comments came in a livestreamed conversation with Johan Rockström, a Swedish professor who is joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, hosted by the Nobel Prize Museum. The teen activist, also a Swede, has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Price.

Thunberg's youth-led climate action movement Fridays for Future marked Earth Day by releasing a short video entitled "Our House Is On Fire," evoking a speech the activist delivered at the World Economic Forum's annual summit in Davos, Switzerland in January 2018.

"We believe it's time people realize that climate change isn't going to happen, but that it's already happening," Fridays for Future U.S. spokesperson Joe Hobbs said in a statement. "We hope that by watching this video people will realize they need to take action now, instead of putting it off until later."

During a video address Wednesday, Guterres said: "On this International Mother Earth Day, all eyes are on the COVID-19 pandemic—the biggest test the world has faced since the Second World War. We must work together to save lives, ease suffering, and lessen the shattering economic and social consequences.

"But there is another deep emergency—the planet's unfolding environmental crisis," he added. "Biodiversity is in steep decline. Climate disruption is approaching a point of no return. We must act decisively to protect our planet from both the coronavirus and the existential threat of climate disruption."

Guterres declared that "the current crisis is an unprecedented wake-up call" and outlined six "climate-related actions to shape the recovery and the work ahead," urging world leaders to pursue a green recovery from the pandemic that ensures "a healthy and resilient future for people and planet alike."

As the coronavirus has spread across the globe, killing nearly 180,000 people, infecting more than 2.59 million, and devastating the world's economy, climate and environmental activists have called for a global Green New Deal and just recovery that prioritizes a rapid transition to renewable energy and other efforts to reduce planet-heating emissions and pollution more broadly. Recent studies tying poor air quality to COVID-19 deaths have added weight to those demands.

The U.N. chief's comments Wednesday were welcome by 350.org, a global environmental advocacy group leading the calls for a just recovery from the public health crisis:

Author and activist Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, discussed Earth Day, the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic on Democracy Now! Wednesday morning. McKibben's interview echoed his piece for The New Yorker last week entitled "How We Can Build a Hardier World After the Coronavirus."

Among the key messages that the coronavirus pandemic is sending the world, according to McKibben, is the importance of listening to science. As he put it during the show: "If they say stand six feet apart, we stand six feet apart. If they say it's time to stop burning coal and gas and oil, then that's what we need to do."

"Similarly, we're learning lessons about delay in timing here that are crucial," McKibben continued. "As you know, the countries that flattened the coronavirus curve early on are doing far better than those like ours, which delayed. That's a pretty perfect analog to the 30 years that we've wasted in the climate crisis."

"And I think third, maybe most powerfully," he added, "the lesson that we're learning is social solidarity is almost everything."

Addressing how the ongoing coronavirus-related lockdowns have caused a massive decline in emissions and pollution around the world, McKibben said that "there are people on Earth who are getting literally their first lungfuls of clean air this month in their lives... Even as we all live through the horror of this pandemic, there are people who are glimpsing the way that the world could be."

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April 12, 2020

Saudi Arabia and Yemen have declared a cease fire. Sailors are becoming infected on aircraft carriers. War planning requires groupings of military people. So has war become a luxury we can no longer afford? Are we really "all in this together"? Does the pandemic require cooperation among all nations since the pandemic doesn't respect national borders? Will the pandemic, when it's over, have changed the way human beings conduct their affairs in the world or will we get back to business as usual. If the pandemic engenders cooperation instead of rivalry among the nations of the world, does this mean that we will all be socialists or communists? Does it even matter?

If the pandemic makes us realize that war is a useless exercise with few benefits, will the US military-industrial complex be defunded. Will the money then go to health care workers, to Peace Corps and AmeriCorps workers who will attempt to bring clean water and modern sanitary systems to developing countries? Will there be a push to create more sanitary conditions in the world so that pandemics don't get started? Plagues and pandemics before have motivated people to build modern sanitary systems in places like London and New York in the 19th century where urban populations in close proximity created the conditions of cholera and bubonic plague. Is homelessness a social situation we can no longer afford?

Will the meaning of 'essential services' become normalized in the economy post corinavirus? What then will be considered essential and what could we live without? As long as there is no vaccine for coronavirus, new cases will continue to crop up even after the economy has "reopened." The flu epidemic of 1918 lasted 10 months and had several spikes. We can expect more spikes in the current pandemic until there are widespread vaccinations available. So what is essential? Sports events? Cruises? Rock concerts? Movie theaters? Now with Netflix and Amazon prime we can watch movies at home. Any movie we want to see. I'm catching up on all the great movies I've missed over the years. Last night I watched "To Catch a Thief" with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Free on Amazon Prime. The fidelity both video and audio was excellent on my smart TV. I have no need to go to a movie theater where I can't control the volume. Hint: they are too loud.

Perhaps now we can grasp the concept that cooperation among peoples and nations is more important than manufactured rivalries over some nation's form of government. Perhaps now we can grasp the concept that diplomacy is more important, getting along is more important and winning isn't everything. Maybe now public health and human rights can be seen as more important than having everyone pull themselves up only by their own bootstraps. Maybe we can get on with the business of cooperating to combat the real enemy - climate change and even future pandemics. Maybe we will bring the US infrastructure into the modern world with a Green New Deal. Maybe we can finally grow up and have a consensus about what is really important, what really matters. Maybe doctors, nurses, caregivers, and social workers will come to be seen as more important that Wall Street brokers, the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps as more important than the War Corps. As Governor Cuomo says, "Love will conquer all." Happy Easter.

Over 150 middle and high school students demonstrated at the U.S. Capitol building urging senators to back the Green New Deal. (Photo: Sunrise Movement)

Now that Bernie Sanders has suspended his run for President Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee. But not so fast. Sanders’ voters are going to support Biden, when he earns it. Sanders blazed new trails of climate leadership, making it compulsory to have multi-billion dollar plans to decarbonize. He defined the terms of the climate change debate by relentlessly insisting that his fellow candidates understand the meaning of an existential threat and take appropriate action. Biden must follow Sanders’ example, not just for Sander’s voters, but for humanity itself.

A classic exchange during the last primary debate shows the gulf between lip service and true command of the issue, Sanders challenged Biden’s climate leadership. “I’m talking about telling the fossil fuel industry that they’re going to stop destroying the planet,” Sanders said. Biden responded, “So am I.” Sanders pressed him, “Well, I’m not sure your proposal does that.” He said, instead of spending 1.8 trillion on weapons to kill each other, let’s fight our common enemy, which is climate change.

"He seems satisfied with half measures like his promise to recommit to the Paris Climate Agreement, a necessary, but insufficient idea. That approach will not suffice for Sanders’ voters. Biden must become the Climate-Commander-in-Chief."

Sure Joe Biden advocates for action on climate change, but not as an urgent, top priority issue. He seems satisfied with half measures like his promise to recommit to the Paris Climate Agreement, a necessary, but insufficient idea. That approach will not suffice for Sanders’ voters. Biden must become the Climate-Commander-in-Chief.

Excessive CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels is driving up the average global temperature which is driving deadly, destructive weather extremes of all sorts. Joe Biden’s climate plan currently calls for a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by no later than 2050, likely two decades too late. He needs to commit to 100% renewable energy by 2030, as Bernie Sanders did.

In order to slow climate change, America must get off fossil fuels. Biden signed the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, but subsequently violated it by attending a fundraiser co-hosted by Western LNG’s co-founder Andrew Goldman, demonstrating a weak commitment, and an affinity for the fossil fuel industry and their money. You can’t fake your way off of fossil fuels, you can’t say one thing and do another and your commitment can’t waiver.

By contrast, Sanders was always ready to challenge the powerful fossil fuel industry. In the last primary debate where Sanders and Biden went mano e mano, Sanders said, “Look, in terms of the fossil fuel industry, these guys have been lying,” Sanders said, “They’ve been lying for years like the tobacco industry lied 50 years ago. ‘Oh we don’t know if, if fossil fuels, if oil, if carbon emissions, are causing climate change.’ They knew! ExxonMobil knew. They lied. In fact, I think they should be held criminally accountable.”

Biden supports a fee on carbon pollution, but needs to prioritize and publicly advocate for a fee on fossil fuels to dramatically reduce and ultimately eliminate the emission of carbon dioxide from those sources. Such a fee should set an ambitious, concrete goal for emission reductions that is adequate to slow climate change and its impacts. The fee itself, the price per ton of carbon dioxide, paid by the polluter, likely needs to start in the triple digits and rise from there, in order to get the job done.

At Mauna Loa, where the government tracks atmospheric carbon dioxide, it currently measures 414.5 parts per million (ppm). Carbon dioxide exceeded 400ppm for the first time in 3-5 million years, the first time in human history in 2014. In his paper, "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Society Aim," former NASA Climate Scientist Dr. James Hansen said, “The safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350ppm."

If Americans have learned one thing during this COVID 19 pandemic, it’s the critical importance of national leadership in a time of crisis. The World Health Organization warns that, “The climate crisis is a health crisis.” They say, besides health emergencies stemming from extreme weather events, climate change fuels the spread of infectious diseases.

Dr. Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician and Interim Director of The Center for Climate Health at Harvard’s School of Public Health said, “The bottom line here is that if you wanted to prevent the spread of pathogens, the emergence of pathogens, as we see not just with people and COVID, but as well with wildlife, you wouldn't transform the climate. Because that forces species to come into contact with other species that may be vulnerable to infections.”

In 2018, the United Nation’s IPCC report said the world had 12 years to limit the climate change catastrophe and keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Given the climate emergency, the difference between a candidate who is good enough on the issue and one who is great, could be the difference between a livable planet and not, when electing a U.S. President in 2020.

With scientific estimates of about 11 years to slow climate change, the 2020 election may represent one of our last chances to prioritize climate change in the voting booth. The next 4 years is more than one third of the time we have for action, signaling the crucial need for Joe Biden to emulate Bernie Sanders’ tough stand and prioritize climate change. We have more immediate needs in the face of a global pandemic, which is itself exacerbated by climate change, but if we don’t slow climate change in short order, no other issue will matter.

Karyn Strickler is a political scientist, grassroots organizer and writer. She is the founder and president of Vote Climate U.S. PAC, working to elect candidates to get off fossil fuels and put a price on carbon. Karyn is the former producer and host of Climate Challenge on MMCTV. You can contact her at climatechallengetv@gmail.com.

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March 27, 2020

The Idiot-in-Chief has done a lot of dumb things, but closing the National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense takes the cake. In addition he has attempted to cut the budget of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) each year for the last 3 years only to be prevented from doing that by Democrats in Congress. Perhaps COVID-19 is divine retribution for a man who has been so focused on basing his reelection on the economy that he has abandoned every other principle of government. I'm sure Dante would have an appropriate place in Hell for him. The experts tell us that this pandemic will last well into the campaign season for the 2020 election, but Trump keeps talking about getting back to normal in a few weeks. Ironically, if he hadn't done away with the NSC Global Health Security Office, we might have had a better handle on the virus. But now, thanks to Trump, the US is the epicenter of the pandemic. It makes a travesty out of "America First."

Trump’s elimination of the office suggested, along with his proposed budget cuts for the CDC, that he did not see the threat of pandemics in the same way that many experts in the field did.

“One year later I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like COVID-19,” Beth Cameron, the first director of the unit, wrote in an op-ed Friday in The Washington Post.

She said the directorate was set up to be the “smoke alarm” and get ahead of emergencies and sound a warning at the earliest sign of fire — “all with the goal of avoiding a six-alarm fire.”

Now Trump wants to "get back to normal" by Easter. Imagine the churches packed with worshippers! They better stay home and utter a prayer for him. Dr. Fauci says that the deadline of Easter for reopening the economy is "aspirational" which is a euphemism for "this is the dumbest thing we ever heard of." It's clear that during the campaign season the economy will be in the tank and Trump is going down. He totally deserves it for the way he hasn't risen to the occasion of the pandemic. He continues to put his own self-interest above the welfare of the rest of the country. It should be obvious to most people by now. He has behaved abominably his whole Presidency, but this pandemic is bringing out the worst in him.

Trump: "Governor Cuomo and others that say, you know, we want 30,000 of them [ventilators]. 30,000! Think of this. You know, you go to hospitals, they'll have one in a hospital." Yes, and think of this. you can't see anything coming out of a tailpipe of a car. Why we've been driving cars for 100 years, and nothing bad has happened. Greenhouse Gasses? We never had greenhouse gasses in New York City. We have the subway. The people ride in a hole in the ground. Think of that!

If the coronavirus pandemic accomplishes nothing else, it will be the end of Trump, thankfully. The Democrats could run Winnie the Pooh and Trump would lose. The American people may be dumb, but they're not that dumb. His response to the pandemic has shown on a daily basis what a deplorable, small minded nincompoop he is. All the people who voted for him must feel ridiculous. Well enough of that.

Let's move on to a more positive scenario, post-Trump and post COVID-19. The NSC office of Global Health will reopen; the CDC will be fully funded. The billionaire class will be heavily taxed including a wealth tax. So far the only wealth tax has affected the middle class - the property tax. It's time to tax billlionaire's wealth and put the money to good use rebuilding infrastructure and greening America and the world, ending endless wars, putting all the money going to the military-industrial complex to better use providing universal health care as a human right as Bernie says. Banning fracking. Building out renewable energy fueled power plants. Building a national power grid. High speed rail. Either we make this country a leader again or America will become a backwater and China will lead the world. Countries will emulate them instead of the antiquated US political and economic system.

Instead of making America great again, Trump has made America a basket case like it never was before. That's what happens when you elect an idiot as President.

March 24, 2020

Among all the negative things that are happening because of the coronavirus, there is at least one positive thing: air pollution and the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) is way down. The pandemic is shutting down industrial activity and temporarily slashing air pollution levels around the world according to satellite imagery. There are fewer cars on the roads, fewer airplanes flying, fewer ships at sea. The downturn in economic activity means that less power is being consumed; therefore, less coal is being shoveled into power plants around the world. It's a veritable demonstration that it is possible to reduce pollution, reduce global warming and in other ways have a cleaner, healthier planet.

Paul Monks, professor of air pollution at the University of Leicester, predicted there will be important lessons to learn. “We are now, inadvertently, conducting the largest-scale experiment ever seen,” he said. “Are we looking at what we might see in the future if we can move to a low-carbon economy? Not to denigrate the loss of life, but this might give us some hope from something terrible. To see what can be achieved. It seems entirely probable that a reduction in air pollution will be beneficial to people in susceptible categories, for example some asthma sufferers,” he said. “It could reduce the spread of disease. A high level of air pollution exacerbates viral uptake because it inflames and lowers immunity.” Agriculture could also get a boost because pollution stunts plant growth, he added.

One of the largest drops in pollution levels could be seen over the city of Wuhan in central China which was put under a strict lockdown in late January. The city of 11 million people serves as a major transportation hub and is home to hundreds of factories supplying car parts and other hardware to global supply chains. According to NASA, nitrogen dioxide levels across eastern and central China have been 10-30% lower than normal.

This period, when the pandemic is not under control, is an opportunity to think differently about the economy. What are essential goods and services? Definitely we need food, clean water and sanitation services. We need garbage collection. People need enough money to supply essential needs for themselves. We could also ask what are inessential needs? Some of these are going to sporting events, going to movie theaters especially when we can watch movies at home, going to music events at arenas especially when we can listen to music at home, going on cruises. With the increase of capabilities for working from home, going into the office is not a necessity for a lot of workers. This can be increased with the result that there will be fewer cars on the road, less rush hour traffic and less GHG emissions. Getting cars off the road is a long term goal for a green economy. This would mean fewer car sales, but it would be better for the environment.

We should ask what are essential activities to keep people healthy and safe and think about doing away with other activities which don't increase the health and welfare of human beings. After dithering for years over the homeless situation, homeless people are being put up in motels and hotels post haste as a public health issue. This is a positive development and goes to show that the homeless situation could have been ameliorated years ago if we had the will to do it. The provision of money to average Americans will not hurt the economy. It will only help the economy. During the 2008 Great Recession trillions of dollars were given to the banks to bail them out. Much of this money went to bail out investors and hedge funds which had made huge bets on the economy. Many of these bets paid off, and their bets were covered in full by the Federal Reserve when the individual Wall Street banks couldn't cover them. Obviously, these rich people did not need that money to continue to cover their own 'essential needs' or the needs of their families. It was money given to gamblers while Joe six pack got zilch. We don't need an economy which caters to rich gamblers and showers them with money when they bet the economy will go down bringing suffering to millions.

At this point the Fed has the capability of bailing out the average American family especially if they have lost their jobs so they can continue to eat and pay rent. This support for average Americans will function also to stabilize the economy and maintain GDP but at a lower level. Perhaps the 70% level that consumption contributes to GDP cannot be maintained, but this might actually be a good thing by eliminating things that are not essential to the health and welfare of the population while driving air pollution and greenhouse gasses down. Neel Kashkari President of the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve siad on 60 Minutes that the Fed needs to be "overly generous" to the average family, something they weren't when the economy tanked in 2008. The Fed is committed to not letting any banks or major US businesses go under. They could just as well make sure that no American families go under. Andrew Yang's idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) not only helps families survive. It will help the economy survive.

March 23, 2020

Who would have thunk it? China has taken capitalist financial methods to the next level with the result that it is progressing more rapidly in material abundance and a consumer society than the proto-capitalist nations of the world: the US and Europe. Sure, politically, they are an authoritarian nation. But that expedites their development since all institutions are on the same wavelength. In particular their central bank, the People's Bank of China (PBC) funds infrastructure projects all over the world. This keeps China a full employment society. They put all the Chinese people to work building infrastructure which expands the money supply in a very widespread way. Essentially the PBC provides loans for all these projects which means it creates the money just as US banks do when they create loans or the Federal Reserve does when it provides "liquidity" to the markets through quantitative easing (QE).

The Federal Reserve has actually expanded the range of market interventions it can do. It used to be that the Fed could only set interest rates. That was it. Now it can buy corporate bonds, state and local bonds and give money directly to corporations to keep them afloat. In fact it can act more like the PBC which interacts directly in the Chinese economy. The Fed can take debts directly onto its balance sheet where they may remain forever. This is exactly what it did in the 2008 financial crash. It provided cash directly to banks in return for mortgage backed securities and Treasury bonds thus providing liquidity to the banks so that they would not go under. Now the banks are well capitalized, and, since they know that the Fed stands ready to bail them out again, they have no worries. In fact the term "bail them out" is actually a misnomer at this point. It can be replaced with "provide them with cash" as necessary.

There was an interesting interview on 60 Minutes with Neel Kashkari, Obama's Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, who was in charge of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) during the Great Recession. He noted that TARP, which was supposed to help out actual people with their mortgages did not go far enough. They were too stingy with it, and not very many people got helped. He says that this prolonged the recession. Instead of being stingy as they were, they should have been "overly generous." That is the lesson he learned. So now in the coronavirus recession, his advice is that the Fed should be overly generous in providing relief to actual everyday people and not just to banks. At this time the banks are doing very well, thank you.

It is well known that money is created by the banks themselves when they create a loan which they do with a couple of keystrokes on a computer. Why is this possible? Because money has no relationship to gold or any other precious metal any more. That's why it's called "fiat money." So what bankers and economists are realizing (which has been the secret of China's success all along resulting in their bringing 800 million people out of poverty in 40 years) is that the US central bank, the Federal Reserve can do the exact same thing. It can create fiat money just like the banks do, like Wall Street does. The only concern is that money so created would lead to inflation, but, as Kashkari noted, there was no inflation even after the Fed created trillions of dollars in 2008 most of which went directly to bankers, hedge funds and rich individuals and not to the average American. Now Kashkari, who is President of the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve, is saying that the Fed could provide liquidity to the American people and not just to the banks. How this will probably happen is by Congress passing a bill on the "fiscal side" as they say. Then they will sell more Treasury bonds to cover the increased deficit. Wall Street banks will buy them since other countries are decreasing their purchase of US debt, and then the Fed will provide liquidity (cash) to Wall Street taking the Treasury bonds onto its balance sheet where they will reside forever probably. This is why the national deficits and debt are no problem because the Fed can print money to cover them ad infinitum. It's as if the Fed provided money directly to the US economy, but, by law, they have to do so indirectly.

Ellen Brown understood this possibility long before Neel Kaskari had his "awakening."

America’s chief competitor in the trade war is obviously China, which subsidizes not just worker costs but the costs of its businesses. The government owns 80% of the banks, which make loans on favorable terms to domestic businesses, especially state-owned businesses. Typically, if the businesses cannot repay the loans, neither the banks nor the businesses are put into bankruptcy, since that would mean losing jobs and factories. The non-performing loans are just carried on the books or written off. No private creditors are hurt, since the creditor is the government, and the loans were created on the banks’ books in the first place (following standard banking practice globally).

Precisely! So no need to worry about another Great Recession or Depression. The US could effectively provide a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to its citizens indefinitely as Andrew Yang proposed.

[B]ecause the Chinese government owns most of the banks, and it prints the currency, it can technically keep those banks alive and lending forever.…

It may sound weird to say that China’s banks will never collapse, no matter how absurd their lending positions get. But banking systems are just about the flow of money.

Spross quoted former bank CEO Richard Vague, chair of The Governor’s Woods Foundation, who explained, “China has committed itself to a high level of growth. And growth, very simply, is contingent on financing. Beijing will come in and fix the profitability, fix the capital, fix the bad debt, of the state-owned banks … by any number of means that you and I would not see happen in the United States.”

There is no reason why the US could not emulate China. From an economic point of view QE or a UBI would not be inflationary as long as the dollars provided to the system were either invested in new plants and equipment, infrastructure or consumption. What is needed now is about $10 trillion worth of Green Infrastructure, a Green New Deal funded indirectly by the Fed. This money can be provided to the American people and not only rich billionaires as was done in 2008 and as China is providing directly to its workers who are kept busy building infrastructure in the Belt and Road initiative. It would also ease economic inequality and not induce inflation as long as the money is widely distributed.

March 22, 2020

Are we becoming more or less civilized? What does civilization even mean? Doesn't it mean that there is less conflict and more harmony among all the 9 billion human beings that inhabit the world? Doesn't it also mean an increased knowledge about how to care for the planet which is our common home? I don't think it means more and more stuff. There is something to be said for material well-being, but, after a certain level has been achieved, further increase only represents gluttony especially if it is not more or less equally distributed among all the earth's population. Progress towards civilization means less conflict, less war, not more freedom. Freedom is a component but is not essential to civilization. Love and diplomacy are.

By any measure human society is becoming less civilized and more solipsistic. The emphasis on extreme individualism and ego-centrism in the US has meant that the US has gone from the world's savior after WW II to the world's dominant and ruling empire placing itself and its prerogatives above the welfare of the world's people. The slogan for the French revolution was "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" and it's France's motto to this day. Although the American and French revolutions happened at about the same time and were based on many similar values, the US totally forgot about the fraternité part. It was replaced with "every man for himself and "don't tread on me." This emphasis on individualism without a corresponding emphasis on compassion and social responsibility was increased during the Reagan and Alan Greenspan era. Greenspan was an acolyte of Ayn Rand who brought a flower arrangement depicting a dollar bill to her funeral. Rand was an extreme individualist whose views didn't recognize any other validity than that which was central to her own mind.

Extreme individualism has found its latest proponent in Donald Trump who might have been a character in one of Ayn Rand's novels, a hero whose only interest was himself and his own interests without any regard for anyone else. Trump has projected this philosophy onto an entire nation with his motto of "America First." However, his real motto is "Trump first." Fraternité or brotherhood has nothing to do with Reagan's or Greenspan's or Ayn Rand's thought processes and there is a direct line among them and their influence on the US turning a once compassionate nation into the equivalent of the Roman Empire, but, whereas the Romans only sought to rule Western Civilization, Trumpism and the American Empire seeks control over the entire planet.

In recent days even Trump has uttered the words "We're all in this together." That's nice to know Mr Trump, but it took a global pandemic for Trump to realize or give credence to this sentiment. However, there is another pandemic that makes the coronavirus pale by comparison, and that is global warming and climate change with respect to which Trump has never uttered the same words and is not likely to. Instead Trump and his Republican progenitors have consistently sought to make America the world's preeminent nation and ruler of the world. Civilization has retreated since the high point of the FDR administration. Even Democratic administrations other than that of Jimmy Carter have triangulated with the devil.

I come back to fraternité. Wouldn't there have been more progress towards civilization if this word had been taken more seriously and not just among Americans or Frenchmen, but among all human beings in a globalized world. Globalism in terms of civilization should lead to peace on earth and a reasonable distribution of material goods instead of a US which hoards everything for itself (the hoarding of toilet paper is symbolic!) and tries to dominate other nations with its military and its economic prowess in terms of the dollar being the world's reserve currency. Since the dollar has been weaponized by its application to sanctions, other currencies are seeking equivalency and will probably soon have it if not dominancy.

It's taken a world wide pandemic to make US leaders realize that we are all in this together. When the pandemic subsides, will this be the takeaway? Will it mean an increase in civilization in terms of understanding and compassion for all peoples of the earth? Will it mean an increase in diplomacy and a reduction in weapon caches? Will it mean a reduction in the size and expenditures on the military-industrial complex? Will it mean some sense of humility instead of hubris on the part of US leaders? In other words will the coronavirus pandemic have resulted in an increase in civilization? Hope springs eternal, but don't bet on it.

March 19, 2020

I guess you could say Joe Biden is a railfan. I remember that he always rode the Amtrak from Washington to his home in Delaware. Now at joebiden.com I read about some of his innovative ideas for revolutionizing the transportation system in this country starting with a national network of recharging stations for electric cars. He'll also invest in a national high speed rail network for moving people and goods. These are good ideas. We need to completely electrify transportation in the next few years as automobile emissions are the greatest contributor to greenhouse gasses right now. The transportation system is much in need of revitalizing including roads and bridges. Research in carbon neutral propulsion systems for ships and planes also needs to be part of it. The more that goods and people can be moved by train, the more the streets and roads will be made available for car traffic cutting down on the need to build more and more freeways or toll roads.

Power generating plants need to be converted to 100% renewable energy ASAP. Joe is intending to do that too. Good news! "As president, Biden will partner with utilities and regulators around the country to build a 21st-century power grid, able to distribute clean energy reliably and safely to households and businesses across the United States. Specifically, he will appoint commissioners to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who will drive market reforms, like expanding regional electric markets, integrating renewables, building in demand-response, and promoting long-term infrastructure planning to achieve a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050. " Well, Joe, we need this long before 2050 when we'll both be pushing up daisies.

Biden's plans to have community colleges launch new Apprenticeship Readiness Programs is a great idea. Not everyone needs to attend university per se. Programs that enable people to do actual work rather than sitting behind a computer screen all day will give incentives to people to train for more meaningful jobs. Those who want to become true professionals like doctors, lawyers, professors etc. need to go to college. There should be no stigma attached to those who want to work with their hands, not sit at a desk all day, and actually build something.

Joe's plans for infrastructure development are excellent. More money needs to be put behind them though and they need to be accelerated time wise. Joe has also said he would support Elizabeth Warren's plan to allow student loan debtors to discharge their debt in bankruptcy court. This is a major step for Joe since he was instrumental in changing the law in 2006 which prevented students from discharging their student loan debt in bankruptcy. Let's hope that Joe Biden will now be the former Senator from MBNA.

March 17, 2020

One positive takeaway from the world’s response to the coronavirus epidemic is that it’s entirely possible to successfully combat two other existential and intertwined global crises: climate change and air pollution. But “possible” doesn’t mean “probable.”

The European Space Agency (ESA) has produced a remarkable new video using data gathered from their Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, which specifically tracks atmospheric air pollution. The images reveal a sharp and sudden decrease in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) over Italy from January to mid-February, which scientists believe is tied to the reduction in human activity in the nation due to the coronavirus outbreak. Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte ordered a lockdown across northern Italy on March 8 to try to contain the disease caused by the virus, COVID-19.

“Although there could be slight variations in the data due to cloud cover and changing weather, we are very confident that the reduction in emissions that we can see coincides with the lockdown in Italy causing less traffic and industrial activities,” said Claus Zehner, the mission’s manager at ESA, in a statement.

This discovery comes on the heels of a similar one made by ESA’s Sentinel-5P and NASA’s Aura satellite, both of which detected significant drops in China’s atmospheric NO2 over a similar period when the Chinese government ordered a quarantine across the country in an effort to halt the spread of coronavirus.

“This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop-off over such a wide area for a specific event,” said Fei Liu, an air quality researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

In fact, putting the brakes on China’s economy to contain the virus has prevented 200 megatons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, according to analysis from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which represents a remarkable 25 percent reduction in the nation’s emissions.

These realities reveal that it is possible for nations to significantly reduce vehicular and power plant emissions, which would result in better air quality and a lessening of other global warming gases, specifically carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is the primary driver of climate change. Of course, that would also mean a reduction in productivity, which would impact the economy.

But it also suggests the possibility of a fascinating scenario, one in which society decouples growth from gross domestic product (GDP). The common “wisdom” is that economic growth is tied to growth in production. But this setup, which puts serious pressure on environmental and climatic health, mainly through the emission of atmospheric pollutants, has brought society to an existential crisis far more dangerous than the coronavirus pandemic: climate change.

In 2011, a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) panel warned that by 2050, humanity could ply through a staggering 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year—three times our current appetite—unless government moved to decouple the rates of economic growth from natural resource consumption. “People believe that environmental ‘bads’ are the price we must pay for economic ‘goods’,” said UNEP executive director Achim Steiner. “However, we cannot and need not continue to act as if this trade-off is inevitable.”

But will governments mandate that millions of vehicles be taken off the roads, even for a short period of time, to give the climate a badly needed break from emissions? It’s highly unlikely since we don’t treat the climate crisis with the same urgency as we have done with the coronavirus pandemic.

Part of it may be the fact that the mainstream media doesn’t give nearly enough attention to the climate crisis, while the coronavirus pandemic gets 24/7 coverage. Last year, major network news broadcasts aired a mere 238 minutes of climate crisis coverage—comprising just 0.7 percent of overall nightly broadcasts and the Sunday morning news shows, according to a recent Media Matters study.

“Americans are seeing coverage of the virus across multiple media platforms in a consistent manner, which is bringing awareness and driving public concern,” write Monica Medina and Miro Korenha of Our Daily Planet. “On the other hand, you’ve probably seen very little coverage that [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] predicts this year’s flooding in the Midwest could rival last year’s catastrophic floods that claimed lives and also helped spread disease to livestock and people.”

Some experts say that nations may even ramp up their economic activity to a higher point than before the epidemic broke out. “When the Chinese economy does recover, they are likely to see an increase in emissions in the short term to sort of make up for lost time, in terms of production,” said climatologist Zeke Hausfather, the director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute, which supports climate action.

Hopefully, for the sake of the planet and for future generations, today’s leaders will realize that the biggest failure revealed by the coronavirus pandemic is their tragically ineffectual response to the climate crisis—and then turn it into a success.

March 15, 2020

They are Speaking of a War Time Effort to Defeat the Coronavirus. A War Time Effort is Necessary to Defeat Climate Change, and It is Even More Important.

by John Lawrence, March 15, 2020

Are we all in this together? Is every nation on earth suffering the effects of the coronavirus? Is it a war? The changes that will come about from global warming, if we don't act now, will kill a billion times more people than the coronavirus ever will. The coronavirus is a clear and present danger to the world's population right now, but mainly to old people with underlying conditions. Global warming is a present danger even if that's not as clear to Americans especially those who have been swayed by Trump's wishy washy response to it.

As Americans we must stop investing trillions of dollars in no win, go nowhere wars, and use that and even more money to help the world divest from the usage of fossil fuels. It goes way beyond just converting the US energy system to renewable energy. We must have a leading role in converting the entire world to renewable energy. That means, instead of creating enemies in the world, we need to develop friendships with all the nations of the world in order to facilitate a threat that will affect every nation of the world just as the coronavirus does right now. We must join China on their Belt and Road initiative but insist that it be a Green Belt and Road initiative. That means building green infrastructure not only in America but in some of the highest polluting countries of the world, namely India. This must be our foreign policy, not sanctions or the threat of war.

That means we must partner with Russia which stands to lose a lot of money if they keep all their extensive supplies of oil in the ground. We are already allies, supposedly, with Saudi Arabia, but we must insist that they and OPEC keep their prodigious oil reserves in the ground. All of this means a humongous change in the world's economic system, which is based on oil, but, if we are unsuccessful as a species in doing this, the earth will surely burn, habitats will be destroyed and future generations will not have a habitable planet to live on. We might as well take off for another habitable planet right now. I understand from Cosmos on TV that there might be one only 20 light years away.

Bernie Sanders is clearly the candidate who will take a Green New Deal the most seriously. Joe Biden will try to tinker around the edges of the current oil based system which will not be enough to deter future disaster, and we don't have too many years to get this right. Clearly, we must do everything we possibly can at the utmost possible speed starting on Day 1 of the next Democratic administration in January 2021.

March 11, 2020

Russia and Saudi Arabia Selling Oil at $40 a Barrel. US Fracking Industry in Deep Debt. Can't Survive at That Price.

by John Lawrence, April 11, 2020

As if the coronavirus was not a big enough threat to the US economy, Russia and Saudi Arabia are in a price war over oil driving the price down to $40 a barrel. The world now needs less oil because of the coronavirus, but Russia is still producing at the same rate. Not to be outdone Saudi Arabia is also maintaining its same level of production producing a glut on the world market. To be profitable at all the US shale oil industry needs prices to be at least $60 a barrel. So effectively, Russia is forcing the US fracking industry, which is totally overleveraged in the first place, into bankruptcy. To boot Russia can produce oil for less money than Saudi Arabia. The US has sanctioned Russia's oil industry in terms of the NORD II pipeline to Europe and its Turkstream pipeline to Turkey, but there is no way that Trump can sanction the price of a barrel of oil if Russia floods the market.

The rapid growth of the U.S. shale industry is at the heart of a Russia-versus-Saudi Arabia crude-oil price war that threatens to upend a global economy already under threat from the spread of the coronavirus, experts said Monday.

“Russia has made no secret of the fact that it is concerned about the growth of the U.S. shale industry and of its view that repeated output cuts by OPEC were effectively handing market share to U.S. producers,” said Caroline Bain, chief commodities economist at Capital Economics, in a Monday note.

Russia’s rejection last week of a Saudi push for additional production cuts prompted Saudi Arabia over the weekend to slash prices on crude exports in a move analysts said was aimed at taking market share from Russia. But it was Russia’s longstanding frustration with rapidly growing U.S. shale industry that prompted Moscow to resist the push for additional production curbs.

Saudi Arabia over the weekend slashed prices on oil exports, a move that traders took as a sign that the Riyadh was ready to take on Russia in a global price war that would flood the world with crude at the same time demand is curtailed by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The fracking industry has survived basically on zero percent interest loans from Wall Street. The whole American economy is based on no interest loans with the Federal Reserve providing quantitative easing whenever banks or major industries needed money. The average American pays through the nose for a loan. The whole economy is on life support, and it would collapse unless it is continually salvaged by government deficit spending and the Fed flooding the markets with liquidity. The fracking industry and the banks that carry its loans are in trouble now because Russia is essentially controlling the price of oil and pricing it below what the fracking industry needs just to pay on its debts. Now that the world needs to consume far less oil because of restrictions on travel, less greenhouse gasses are going into the atmosphere. This is the silver lining which is not being talked about.

So now the world is at war, not one nation towards another nation, but the whole world vs the coronavirus. Finally the world is coming together against a common enemy. So far the world has not come together in the same way in the common fight against global warming. If it can come together in the fight against the coronavirus, why can't it come together in the fight against global warming which is far more serious. The coronavirus is so far only killing the elderly with underlying conditions. So nursing homes have to be very concerned about their patients, but so far in the US young people that have acquired the virus generally get over it just as they would with the flu virus. The coronavirus may kill millions, but global warming has the potential of killing billions.

March 10, 2020

During WW II, Cars and Gas Were Rationed. Would the American People Accept Such Sacrifices in the War on Global Warming?

by John Lawrence, March 10, 2020

Evidently not. Despite warnings that we have less than 10 years to do something before there is runaway global warming, nothing much has been done. Yet the coronavirus has set the world's consciousness on fire in just a few short weeks. Why hasn't global warming gotten the world so up in arms? During WW II everybody had a job; everybody worked, yet there were government mandated limits on consumption. All kinds of things were rationed especially cars and gas. Yet economic activity expanded due to ramping up the war effort. Today the economy is going into a tailspin because large crowds have been proscribed. All the money that has been added to GDP by music events and professional athletics has gone bye-bye. This is not necessarily a bad thing because people might be better off staying home and reading a good book rather than being out at a sporting event. I know. I know this is a very unpopular opinion.

The point is that, during WW II people had the basic necessities, and everyone was employed. They just couldn't have the icing on the cake until after the war when rationing was lifted. Then the economy boomed. Perhaps there is a lesson here for how to mobilize a society to get a handle on global warming. In the few short weeks that government spokesmen have decried cruise ship and airplane travel, green house gas emissions (GHGs) have actually decreased. If the government proscribed these and other activities such as automobile travel (think gas rationing), GHGs would decrease even more rapidly. Then, if the government went on an investment spree in terms of renewable energy the way it did on planes and battleships during WWII, there would be full employment. People would just be limited temporarily until this war is won in how they could actually spend their money just like in WWII.

Then after a totally green economy is achieved fueled by green renewable energy, the barriers on spending money would be lifted. Could this even work? Some authors don't think so. William Greider writes in "Secrets of the Temple":

World War II was a model of the possible. In theory, if a national consensus of purpose developed, if people would accept temporary limits on their economic choices as well as regulatory controls on wages and prices, the nation could literally rebuild itself, almost overnight. With the right choices, America could practically double the productive capacity of its economy and advance innovation and dramatically multiply new wealth and incomes. These economic choices, however, were really political questions: who would take the sacrifices and who would take the rewards? Whose consumption would be restrained and whose production would be encouraged. All this consigned extraordinary powers to government, perhaps tolerable only in war. No one, including the most ardent Keynesian planners, has ever figured out how to recreate a comparable combination of creative sacrifices in peacetime or how to sell it to a free society.

And that, dear reader is the crux of the matter. How do you sell the necessary war time effort to combat global warming to a free society? Sure the coronavirus has had the salutary effect of decreasing cruise ship and airplane travel with the concomitant decrease in GHG emissions. At the same time the stock market has gone into a tailspin. If the same kind of effort were made in behalf of global warming, we could expect the stock market to go into the mother of all tailspins. Is it worth it or should we consign future generations to the fate of runaway global warming and an uninhabitable planet?

Abraham Maslow wrote a book, "Towards a Psychology of Being" in which he identified a pyramid of needs starting with D-needs. D-needs are the basic needs of food, air, water, housing and clothing. You might throw in medical care.Then, as you ascend the pyramid, higher order needs are revealed once the lower order needs are met. At the top he identified B-needs or self-actualization which might mean developing all your latent higher order capacities such as becoming a great musician. What seems to me to have happened though is that society has intervened in this process to impose superfluous needs on people. Let's call them S-needs. These needs have to do with all the materialistic consumption that a commercial society imposes or tries to impose on people through advertising so that Maslow's higher order needs are really short-circuited. That's why I say that staying home and reading a good book might be more beneficial in and of itself than attending a professional sporting event in addition to protecting one from the coronavirus.

What an enlightened society would do to combat global warming is exactly what America did during WW II. D-needs were well satisfied due to a full employment society in which certain kinds of consumption were discouraged while making sure that everyone was fed, clothed, housed and had adequate medical treatment. Could in Greider's words a " national consensus of purpose develop" in which people felt it was more important to delay certain kinds of consumption in order to develop the green infrastructure needed to get global warming under control? The world needs America's leadership on this because America is largely responsible for the GHGs already in the atmosphere, and, if America will not have a sense of urgency, why should any other nation which is just starting to develop a consumer culture?

March 09, 2020

Remember when there was the gas shortage, and you could only get gas on even numbered days if your license plate ended in an even number and odd numbered days if it ended in an odd number? That was in the 1970s. What if the President declared that you could only drive your car on odd numbered days if you had a license plate ending in an odd number and vice versa for plates ending in an even number? Since most GHG emissions are due to car tailpipe emissions, this would cut the GHGs going into the atmosphere by almost 50% here in the US at least.

On alternate days people would have to car pool to work or take public transportation or work from home as many are doing due to the coronavirus. Shippers would have to adjust their schedules and use more shipping by rail. Shipping by rail is much more efficient than shipping by truck. It could be done, but would any President ever have the guts or the balls to do it and incur the wrath of the car centric American people? That's what it really comes down to. If the US is ever to diminish GHG emissions in a radical way, meaning in a way which might actually do some good and have a significant effect, cars would have to be gotten off the road, gas consuming cars at least. Electric car production could be ramped up with government subsidies. Instead the government is still subsidizing fossil fuel production. It just goes to show that people aren't serious about the reduction of global warming. In effect we're a nation of global warming deniers led by the global warming Denier-in-Chief, Donald Trump. He's only concerned about "the economy" not about saving earth for future generations.

The transportation sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation primarily come from burning fossil fuel for our cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes. Over 90 percent of the fuel used for transportation is petroleum based, which includes primarily gasoline and diesel. Electrified trains would burn no fossil fuels except those burned in the production of electricity. Electricity production itself generates the second largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Approximately 62.9 percent of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, mostly coal and natural gas. So electricity production from renewables must be ramped up. Again government subsidies or complete government control could eliminate fossil fuel electricity generating plants in short order depending on how great a commitment there was to do it.

Also plants which absorb carbon dioxide need to be planted on a massive basis. New forests need to be created and logging industries must be controlled. It's not exactly laissez-faire capitalism, is it? In the interests of saving a planet that is habitable for humans and other animals, government must intervene in the free market system because the market will continue to use fossil fuels if it is let to do so.

March 08, 2020

Amy is already campaigning for Joe in Michigan which will be the pivotal state that will determine whether it will be Biden or Sanders. After Tuesday we should know who is going to be the Democratic nominee. Biden won some states on super Tuesday without even having campaigned there or bought one TV ad. His impressive showing on super Tuesday seems to indicate that Democrats want the safe middle of the road candidate to represent them against Donald Trump. Bernie's young voters didn't turn out in big enough numbers. Well, if Joe is the candidate, they won't get their student loan debt forgiven. That's for sure. And we seniors won't get any big increases in our social securitychecks. Joe will mean business as usual even if he beats Trump which he probably won't. I think Trump will beat him like a drum rather than the opposite which Joe proclaims all the time.

For Bernie this will be his last hurrah. One thing is for sure: he has gotten his message out there. The Dems went for the establishment candidate in 2016, and Trump beat her like a drum. The same will probably be true this time around especially if the economy is good. Joe Biden has an absolutely uninspiring message: more of the same from the Obama era. It wasn't that great in the first place. Obamacare was a mishmash thanks to Obama's determination to compromise with Republicans and Republicans turning Obamacare into a bete noir. Obama also is notable for bailing out the banks while not bailing out the many homeowners that went into foreclosure.

Joe Biden will try to coast along for 4 years. That's not what America or the world needs. Trump, for all his mendacity is slightly more mentally alert than Biden and more likely to land punishing blows if there is a Biden Trump debate. Then again Trump may decide not to debate, but to rely on his acolytes like Fox News and numerous devotees to carry his water. With all the ad money at his disposal that would probably win the day. Too bad Bernie's supporters just didn't show up to vote. Maybe they will in Michigan. The country and the world really need Bernie at this critical juncture.

So what will we get with 4 more years of Trump. Four more years of climate change denying which is really what the American people want from their President because they value the American lifestyle more than they value a habitable earth for future generations. Wall Street emphasizes short term profits, and most Americans are imbued with the short term profit mantra. They don't really care what happens to the earth in the future if they have to make sacrifices in their lifestyles now.. It's the American way. Just maximize your profits.

Octogenarian actor and activist Jane Fonda declared ahead of a climate action protest in California Friday that the United States needs a "climate president" and she is now backing Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is leading a grassroots movement challenging the Democratic Party establishment coalescing around former Vice President Joe Biden.

"We have to get a climate president in office, and there's only one right now, and that's Bernie Sanders."—Jane Fonda, actor and activist

"We have to get a climate president in office, and there's only one right now, and that's Bernie Sanders," Fonda toldUSA TODAY prior to the Los Angeles rally. "So, I'm indirectly saying I believe you have to support the climate candidate."

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is technically still in the Democratic presidential primary race, but Super Tuesday effectively made it a two-person contest between Biden and Sanders (I-Vt.). USA Today noted that Fonda previously donated to Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who have since ended their campaigns.

Sanders' Green New Deal proposal to tackle the global climate crisis and ensure a just transition to renewable energy has been hailed by climate advocates as a "game-changer." The plan, unveiled in August 2019, calls for "100% renewable energy for electricity and transportation by no later than 2030 and complete decarbonization by at least 2050."

Author and activist Naomi Klein, who has written extensively about the climate crisis and endorsed Sanders, welcomed Fonda's support for the presidential hopeful in a pair of tweets Saturday:

Last Oct, @Janefonda announced she would protest, and often get arrested, every Friday, as part of a push to get a candidate who clearly backs a #GreenNewDeal in the White House.

Fonda's comments about supporting Sanders came ahead of the second Fire Drill Friday event in California. In October 2019, Fonda launched Fire Drill Fridays as a weekly civil disobedience campaign in Washington, D.C. that aimed to pressure U.S. policymakers to ambitiously address the human-caused climate crisis.

After a few months and five arrests, Fonda returned to California to resume filming her Netflix show Grace and Frankie. She also partnered with Greenpeace USA to bring Fire Drill Fridays to the West Coast. The first monthly rally was held on Feb. 7 at City Hall in Los Angeles. The second event was Friday, in the Los Angeles Harbor area, and focused on environmental racism.

With the Fire Drill Friday demonstrations, "we're protesting an existential threat that could determine the future of human life on the planet, basically," Fonda explained to USA Today.

Fonda's attorneys struck a deal with a D.C. judge that the 82-year-old won't face penalties or court dates for her arrests as long as she isn't arrested in Los Angeles for three months. Although she won't be risking arrest for a while, Fonda continues to demand climate action—specifically, cutting emissions by 50% over the next decade and phasing out fossil fuels by 2050.

"This is going to be very, very, very hard, and it requires millions and millions of people to do more than just be concerned, but to actually become activists and become willing to put their bodies on the line," Fonda said. "That's why we're doing Fire Drill Fridays."

Fonda was joined Friday by her Grace and Frankie co-stars Lily Tomlin and Sam Waterston as well as other celebrities and national and community organizers. After rallying at offices of Los Angeles City Councilmember Joe Buscaino, a group of actors and activists visited fossil fuel impact zones in the area before blockading the entrance of a Warren E&P oil extraction site. There were no arrests.

"While we're in the midst of a massive communicable health crisis across the globe, a much quieter health crisis is worsening in communities like Wilmington, California where hundreds of residents, activists, and celebrities joined me today," Fonda said in a statement Friday. "We heard powerful stories from community members who have become seriously ill simply by living in their own homes where drilling is occurring in their backyards, without their permission."

"We will be watching California leadership, specifically Councilmember Joe Busciano, who has allowed his district to become a sacrifice zone for the fossil fuel industry, and demanding they do better," Fonda promised. "We will not quiet down until our leadership decides to protect the people and our climate."

Fonda's vow to hold California leadership accountable was echoed by other climate activists. Annie Leonard of Greenpeace USA called Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to "do something for the health and and safety of communities like Wilmington, and begin a just transition away from fossil fuels for the industry's workers."

Newsom, Leonard said, "must stop issuing new permits for oil and gas projects, drop existing fossil fuel production, and roll out setback limits by creating a 2,500-foot public health and safety buffer zone between fossil fuel infrastructure like the Warren E&P sites and homes, schools, and other sensitive sites in neighborhoods like Wilmington."

As Wilmington community organizer Alicia Riveria explained:

Oil operations happen right next to our homes and schools and parks in Wilmington. People are suffering while politicians are sitting on their hands. Just last week a fire broke out at one of the refineries in our community and we had to advise residents to stay indoors and close their windows to try to mitigate toxic fumes from coming into their homes. There is environmental racism at play for frontline communities across California, and it's unacceptable.

Dr. Saba Malik of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles and the STAND-LA Coalition said, "It's public health common sense—based on a mountain of scientific evidence—that oil production does not belong anywhere near homes, schools, or other sensitive land uses."

"So why do they remain in communities like Wilmington and South Los Angeles?" Malik added. "Because these communities are comprised overwhelmingly of people of color, lower income people with less access to adequate healthcare, resulting in an even greater risk of chronic disease and increased vulnerability to the effects of these environmental insults."

This post has been updated with comment from author and activist Naomi Klein.

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March 05, 2020

The four components of GDP are personal consumption, business investment, government spending, and net exports. Right now personal consumption is 70% of GDP in the US. Business investment is 18%. Most businesses are buying back their stock rather than investing in manufacturing or R&D. Government spending is 17%. More than 60% is military spending. Net exports were -5% since imports (18%) were greater than exports (13%). This represents an oil based economy heavy on fossil fuel pollution. What needs to happen to fend off global warming is a reduction in personal consumption especially in those aspects that are high in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as automobile, airplane and cruise ship travel. Government needs to increase its spending in areas of infrastructure rebuilding and spending on renewable energy systems while reducing military spending which is highly GHG contributing as well.

Businesses need to be encouraged to manufacture here in the US instead of importing everything from China and elsewhere because cargo ships are highly polluting. Businesses which help solve the climate change dilemma need to be encouraged while high polluters need to be reined in. We need to become more like Europe where personal consumption is only 54% of GDP. In Europe government spending is 46.5% of GDP. Of this spending on defense amounted to 1.2 % of GDP in 2018. Contrast this with the 60% that the US spends on defense, and you see the difference between a highly militarized nation that has no money to spend on infrastructure much less a Green New Deal and a group of countries that spends more of its money on the welfare of its citizens. Trump has been agitating to get European countries to spend 2% on defense. This would still mean that the US would be spending 30 times as much.

If Bernie Sanders wins the election for President of the US, we can expect radical changes in the current composition of GDP. Certain items of personal consumption need to be reduced, namely combustion engine car travel. The infrastructure for electric automobiles needs to be built out. Government subsidies need to be given to electric car purchasers. Mass transit needs to be built out and encouraged. Military expenditures need to be reduced both to promote peace in the world and so that the money can be freed up for more constructive purposes. Coal fired electric power generating plants need to be replaced with renewable energy electric power generating plants. Frivolous personal consumption needs to be discouraged while consumption based on human needs for all people should be encouraged especially affordable housing, nutritious non-industrialized food production which is affordable for all and universal health care like Europe has.

In short we need to become more like Europe with a reduced military empire and an increased build out of green infrastructure based on renewable energy. Bernie Sanders represents this kind of change for America - a government which invests in its people and takes radical steps to mitigate global warming.

February 25, 2020

The critics have piled on Bernie about how he's going to pay for his proposals for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, forgiving student loan debt and free college tuition. Now Bernie has come out with a detailed plan about how to do it. The obvious answer is how do other countries do it? Most other advanced countries have free universal health care and free college tuition. They take it for granted. I had some passengers from Calgary, Alberta whom I asked 'how do you like the Canadian health care system?'. He replied, "It's free." I said, "Yeah, but don't you have to pay for it in your taxes?" He said, "I guess so." So he wasn't really concerned that he was paying taxes through the nose to pay for "free" health care. He didn't even know what percentage of his taxes went to health care. I suspect that once the tax structure changes here so that rich people pay more and poor people pay less that everything will be like that too.

It will cost $2.2 trillion to make public colleges, universities and trade schools tuition-free and to cancel all student debt over the next decade. It is fully paid for by a modest tax on Wall Street speculation that will raise an estimated $2.4 trillion over ten years. A Financial Transaction Tax has been talked about for years. Bernie is the only one bold enough to actually make it part of his campaign platform. It needs to be done. The financialization of the economy is what led to the 2008 economic debacle in which the banks were bailed out by the American people to the tune of trillions of dollars. So now even though it's years later, let them pay to bail out the American people. It's a good thing.

Bernie’s bill to expand Social Security will increase benefits for low-income senior citizens and people with disabilities by more than $1,300 a year. It is fully paid for by making the wealthiest 1.8 percent of Americans – those with incomes over $250,000 a year – pay the same rate into Social Security as working families. I like that a lot. Right now even though I'm still working and paying into social security, I'm receiving less than $700. a month in social security. Another $1300. a month would bring my social security up to $2000. a month. Why it's even enough to rent an apartment!

Bernie’s proposal to guarantee housing as a human right and to eliminate homelessness will cost $2.5 trillion over the next decade. It is fully paid for by a wealth tax on the top one-tenth of one percent – those who have a net worth of at least $32 million. (Bernie’s wealth tax will raise a total of $4.35 trillion.) A wealth tax on the rich! I love it. Eliminating homelessness and finally implementing the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights - priceless! It's time the millionaires and billionaires paid to eliminate poverty in this country. The wealth tax will also pay for universal child care and pre-school. By the way maybe the Congress should get on board and finally ratify the 1948 Declaration.

The Green New Deal will transform this country and be the first step in saving the planet from ultimate destruction. It needs to be extended to the rest of the world eventually as well. We need to cooperate with other countries to implement it and share renewable energy technology. This means joining China's Belt and Road initiative in terms of making sure everything under development is based on renewable energy and is non-polluting. It goes without saying that the US should rejoin the Paris Accords on climate change, but extend it even further.

All in all Bernie's plans are a wonderful and refreshing change of pace for the US of A and the rest of the world. If they come to pass, i will be proud of my country again for implementing both humanitarian policies and policies which will save the earth from a global warming catastrophe.

February 24, 2020

Why the US Needs to Rid Itself of the Antagonistic Relationship with Russia and China: We Need Their Cooperation to Combat Global Warming

by John Lawrence, February 24, 2020

Trump has created an antagonistic relationship with both Russia and China. For all the brou ha ha about Trump liking Putin, the Trump administration has sanctioned Russia regarding the Nord Stream II pipeline which would deliver Russian natural gas to Germany. It has also sanctioned our ally Germany! With respect to China it has raised a stink over Huawei, the most advanced 5G company in the world, and discouraged if not sanctioned European countries from doing business with them. It's clear that, while American corporations cannot gain a competitive advantage in the competitive market place, Trump stands ready to sanction Russian or Chinese corporations that can.

However, Russia and China can be crucial allies in the fight against global warming. In fact it doesn't go too far to say that, without their cooperation, we might just as well relax and let the earth burn up. China, although it has made many advances in renewable energy technology, is still building coal fired electricity generating plants.. Wired reports:

“For awhile it looked like China was moving away from coal toward clean energy, but coal is still a pretty big part of the country’s economy,” says Christine Shearer, the coal program director at the Global Energy Monitor. “We don’t have a lot of time in terms of emission reduction, but clean energy development is happening alongside coal plant construction rather than displacing it.”

To meet its climate goal as stipulated in the Paris agreement, China will need to reduce its coal power capacity by 40 percent over the next decade, according to Global Energy Monitor’s analysis. At present, this seems unrealistic. In addition to roughly 1,000 gigawatts of existing coal capacity, China has 121 gigawatts of coal plants under construction, which is more than is being built in the rest of the world combined.

Many of these coal fired plants are not operating at full capacity or may even be left idle as China revs up its renewable energy capacity. However, China is building coal fired plants in many other countries as part of its Belt and Road initiative. Edward Cunningham, a specialist on China and its energy markets at Harvard University, said that China is building or planning more than 300 coal plants in places as widely spread as Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt and the Philippines. China knows how to build coal plants. It is the world's largest coal consumer, drawing more than 70 percent of its electricity from coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But the Chinese engineers, metalworkers and laborers who built coal-fired power plants in China must be kept employed. And, Cunningham says, "many are going abroad."

Russia is the third largest producer of fossil fuels in the world, holds the second largest proven reserves of natural gas, and the world's third largest reserve base of coal. This constitutes money in the bank for Russia. In 2017, 95 per cent of domestic energy production and 90 per cent of total energy supply in Russia came from fossil fuels. How are they going to be convinced to stop cashing in on these proven reserves especially when the US President is a global warming denier and has placed sanctions on Russian natural gas? To have a prayer of a chance to get Russia and China off of their commitments to fossil fuels will require global cooperation with countries which the US has gone out of its way to antagonize. The same holds true for Iran, a major oil producer.

It's not enough just to go to 100% renewable energy within the US. The United States produced 5.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2018 the second largest in the world after China and among the worst countries by greenhouse gas emissions per person. Because coal-fired power stations are gradually shutting down in the US, GHG emissions from electricity generation fell to second place behind transportation, which is now the largest single source. So it's imperative for the US to do a radical and massive shift from gas burning cars and trucks to transportation systems run on renewable energy. High speed rail is important to get planes, which are major polluters, out of the sky. Electrification of automobiles must be government subsidized. Charging stations must become as numerous as gas stations. Light rail and electrified trolley systems must be built out. In short infrastructure built with a Green New Deal is imperative.

Finally, the US must cooperate with other fossil fuel producing countries in a Green New Deal For The Entire World. Developing countries must be subsidized so that they develop based on renewable energy and not fossil fuels. Adversaries must become allies in the fight against global warming.

February 23, 2020

“These billionaires, the top 1%, they’re probably crapping their pants.”

by John Lawrence, February 23, 2020

Thanks to the internet and Google, I couldn't locate who is responsible for that quote. However, Bernie Sanders' campaign for President of the United States is not only a campaign, but it's also a community organizing event at the same time. He is organizing the community of voters that will turn out for him. In that sense it is a political revolution. It's all about turning out the vote. Whoever turns out the most voters in their behalf will win the election. The establishment, both Democratic and Republican, doesn't want Bernie Sanders to win. In particular the Democratic party is set up in such a way as to rig the nominating process. Bernie will probably not have enough delegates to win on the first ballot.

So the Democratic party has invented this way that they can eliminate any candidate who is not mainstream enough to their tastes. It's called superdelegates. According to Wikipedia:

In American politics, a “superdelegate” is an unpledged delegate to the Democratic National Convention who is seated automatically and chooses for themselves for whom they vote. These Democratic Party superdelegates (who make up slightly under 15% of all convention delegates) include elected officials, party activists and officials.

Democratic superdelegates are free to support any candidate for the presidential nomination. This contrasts with pledged delegates who are selected based on the party primaries and caucuses in each U.S. state, in which voters choose among candidates for the party's presidential nomination. On August 25, 2018, the Democratic National Committee agreed to reduce the influence of superdelegates by generally preventing them from voting on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention, allowing their votes only in a contested nomination.

Bernie may not have the 1991 pledged delegates to win on the first ballot although he will probably have the most pledged delegates by then. That means that Democratic National Committee (DNC) party officials who constitute the 764 superdelegates will be eligible to vote on the second ballot. Also the pledged delegates are unpledged on the second ballot. This whole process adds to the confusion of who will win the Democratic nomination as there are two wings of the Democratic party - the progressive wing led by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and the moderate wing comprisng Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg and now Mike Bloomberg. Will these wings combine pledged votes so they can stand behind the nomination of one candidate? Or can they according to DNC rules?

What no one wants (except perhaps Republicans) is a slugfest at the Democratic National Convention. A brokered convention is one where party elites will probably dictate whom the nominee will be. These are the superdelegates who can vote on the second ballot. It seems clear they don't want Bernie Sanders. But if Bernie goes into the convention with a substantial plurality, a substantial lead over the other contestants, will the Democratic party elite have the nerve to take the nomination away from him? And will then the whole progressive wing of the Democratic party stay home on election day, or, worse yet, turn out and vote for Trump?

It seems clear that the voters want change in America. That's why they voted for Trump who was a disrupter on the right of the political spectrum. Bernie is also a disrupter, but on the Left. It seems clear to me that the people don't want the same ol same ol as represented by the Democratic party's moderates like Joe Biden. They want radical change. There must be radical change just on the issue of climate change alone or else planet earth is destined to be a not very habitable home for human beings and other animals. Cockroaches will probably survive, and maybe someday they will evolve into more intelligent beings. That will be the outcome if Trump is reelected.

New research published Monday warns that extreme weather driven by the climate crisis could bring about an economic recession "the likes of which we've never seen before" if markets don't do a better job assessing climate risks.

Paul Griffin, an accounting professor at the University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management, wrote in a paper for Nature Energy that financial markets have not sufficiently accounted for the major economic risks posed by the global climate crisis, even as extreme weather—from destructive hurricanes to prolonged drought—wreaks havoc across the globe.

"Unpriced risk was the main cause of the Great Recession in 2007-2008," Griffin wrote. "Right now, energy companies shoulder much of that risk. The market needs to better assess risk, and factor a risk of extreme weather into securities prices... Without better knowledge of this risk, the average energy investor can only hope that the next extreme event will not trigger a sudden correction to the market values of energy firms."

Griffin continued:

This past summer, the United States and Europe experienced record-breaking heat. Now linked reliably to climate change, excessive high temperature is among the deadliest of weather extremes. Not only can it disrupt agriculture, harm human health, and stunt economic growth, it can also overwhelm—and temporarily shut down—large parts of a state's or a nation's energy system, as in the case of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) in California.

Despite these obvious risks, investors and asset managers have been conspicuously slow to connect physical climate risk from extreme weather events to company market valuations.

Griffin is not the first financial expert to raise alarm about the potentially calamitous economic impacts of the climate crisis—which would come in addition to the emergency's incalculable effects on humans, animals, plants, insects, and the planet as a whole.

The Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements warned in a 115-page report (pdf) last month that the "increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events could trigger non-linear and irreversible financial losses."

February 16, 2020

There is a tug of war going on between Bernie and the so-called moderates. What the pundits don't understand is that the swing voters in the coming election don't just want somebody that can beat Trump. They want something different. That's why they voted for Trump in the first place. If the Democrats offer up a moderate, unexciting candidate, Trump will be reelected. Trump was a wild card; that's why people voted for him. They are still in the same mood. They want something different - not a party line Democrat.

Sure Trump has a base; the Democrats have a base, but this next election will be about who has the best ideas, not just turning out the base. Ideas are exciting especially when there are as many things that need to be dealt with as this country has. Certain issues have reached crisis proportions, namely, global warming, infrastructure, unending wars and health care. What young and swing voters don't want is a moderate of either party, and they will embrace a radical of either party. Those who voted for Trump in 2016 will turn around and vote for Bernie in 2020. By now Trump has pretty much worn out his welcome among a lot of people.

[Democrats are] adept at highlighting the myriad problems with our healthcare system — the high costs, the millions uninsured, the financial devastation of getting sick.

But when it comes to solutions, most of the Democratic presidential candidates offer vague policy proposals and sidestep pointed questions about how much healthcare reform would cost.

This is simply foolish. On both counts — policy and price — the Dems have a winning political issue. ...

Gerald Kominski, a professor of health policy and management at UCLA, tells me the problem with communicating these ideas is that the scope of the problem is so large, and the underlying components so complex, many people can’t get their heads around such difficult policy matters.

“This easily slips into Nerd Land,” he said.

But once you clear away all the policy brush, Kominski observed, there’s a fairly simple message to be conveyed about Medicare for all or any other single-payer system.

“Most families would be better off,” he said.

There it is.

Yes, this is all very complicated. And, yes, there would be nothing easy about transforming the U.S. healthcare system into one more in line with our economic peers.

But let’s emphasize Kominski’s point: Most families would be better off.

That’s the case Democrats should be making, again and again, to the American people.

So what's so complicated about that? That's what a great communicator has to do. Make the case in the simplest terms. Bernie has made the case that there would be no premiums, no deductibles and no co-pays. He just needs to emphasize that the cost per person would be half of what it is now in line with costs per person in other advanced countries, and that there would be a sliding scale tax wise so that the rich would pay proportionately more while the middle class would pay proportionately less and the poor would pay nothing at all.

So rather than letting other candidates attack by mentioning an astronomical cost for Bernie's plan, he has to come back at them with the facts that for most people the cost would be less. He and Elizabeth Warren have to double down on the wealth tax and making corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes instead of getting tax subsidies.

Republicans will go nuts over Bernie being a "socialist", but most young people don't care about that label any more. They care about tangible things like free college tuition and the forgiveness of student loan debt which affects even people in their 60s.

Young people also don't want to inherit a dying planet. Better to siphon off the wealth of those who won't be around to see it and, therefore, don't care if the planet dies after they're gone. They will be like the rats leaving the sinking ship leaving the young to go down with it. But the young who will suffer sure do care about the planetary crisis that will be handed to them by their elders, and they will vote accordingly.

A view of Adelie Penguins on Seymour Island during a voyage to Antarctica on a ship called "Le Diamant" during February 2006. (Photo: Michel Setboun/Getty Images)

As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday announced that last month was the hottest January ever recorded, the Guardianreported that Brazilian scientists logged a new record-breaking temperature of 20.75°C, or 69.35°F, at Seymour Island in Antarctica on Feb. 9.

The newspaper noted that the new record, along with one logged on Feb. 6 by Argentina's Esperanza research station at the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula, "will need to be confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization, but they are consistent with a broader trend on the peninsula and nearby islands, which have warmed by almost 3°C [37.4°F] since the pre-industrial era—one of the fastest rates on the planet."

Scientists working for Terrantar, a Brazilian government climate monitoring project in the Antarctic, described the latest record as "incredible and abnormal," according to the Guardian. As scientist Carlos Schaefer put it: "We are seeing the warming trend in many of the sites we are monitoring, but we have never seen anything like this."

Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who founded the global Fridays for Future movement, and other advocates for ambitious climate action shared the Guardian's report about the new Antarctic record on Twitter Thursday:

Responding to a Voxreport about the recent temperature records in Antarctica, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) tweeted Thursday: "The climate crisis is happening now. We need a Green New Deal."

Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) introduced the Green New Deal resolution in February 2019.

News of the Brazilian scientists' finding came as experts at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information revealed that "in the span of 141 years of climate records, there has never been a warmer January than last month."

"What's more, the temperature departure from average was the highest monthly departure ever recorded without an El Niño present in the tropical Pacific Ocean," NOAA said. "January 2020 marked the 44th consecutive January and the 421st consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average."

The U.S. agency found that the global land and ocean surface temperature for January 2020 was the highest on record at 2.05° F above the 20th-century average. The previous record was set in January 2016. The four warmest Januaries ever recorded have all occurred over the past five years, and the 10 warmest have all been during the 21st century.

In the contiguous U.S., last month was the fifth warmest January in the 126-year record, with an average temperature of 35.5°F, 5.4°F above the 20th-century average. NOAA's report highlighted "significant climate anomalies and events" from January 2020, including below average Great Lakes ice cover, a record high temperature in Boston, and a "strong, spring-like storm system" in the South and Southeast.

Beyond the United States, NOAA reported that "record-warm temperatures were seen across parts of: Scandinavia, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the central and western Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and Central and South America. No land or ocean areas had record-cold January temperatures."

Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean all experienced their second-warmest Januaries, according to NOAA. The Arctic sea ice extent was the eight smallest since satellite records began in 1979, while the Antarctic sea ice extent tied with January 2011 for the 10th smallest ever recorded.

The January 2020 report came about a month after NOAA, WMO, and other agencies across the globe reported that 2019 was the second-hottest year on record. University of Illinois climate scientist Don Wuebbles told the Associated Press Thursday that that series of findings "is one of those indications that things are warming dramatically."

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There was an amazing Nova program about dogs. Research has shown that there was a gene mutation when dogs split off from wolves and became domesticated by humans. It turns out that wolves are as intelligent as dogs, but dogs have a special ability to bond with humans and other animals that wolves don't have - even domesticated wolves. They have also shown that people with Williams syndrome have the same gene mutation which makes them more loving and more empathetic towards people and animals. People with Williams syndrome have lower IQs than average, but exhibit a willingness to love and have empathy for others.

This brings up an interesting point. Perhaps humans have evolved in a way that puts more emphasis on the rational mind and IQ level than on their ability to have empathy for others, and perhaps this is why there is so much conflict and war in the world. Certainly, much more human effort has gone into developing weapons of war than implements of peace. Maybe this is what, in the long run, dooms the human race as an evolutionary experiment. A heightened level of empathy is now necessary if the human race is willing to do what's necessary to save the earth as a habitable planet for future generations.

Among the hallmark traits of people with Williams syndrome is an apparent lack of social inhibition. Dykens and Rosner (1999) found that 100% of those with Williams syndrome were kind-spirited, 90% sought the company of others, 87% empathize with others' pain, 84% are caring, 83% are unselfish/forgiving, 75% never go unnoticed in a group, and 75% are happy when others do well. Infants with Williams syndrome make normal and frequent eye contact, and young children with Williams will often approach and hug strangers. People affected by Williams syndrome typically have high empathy, and are rarely observed displaying aggression. In regards to empathy, they show relative strength in reading people's eyes to gauge intentions, emotions, and mental states.

Dogs unlike wolves have a strong need to emotionally bond with humans. They will even bond with other animals which will let them. This is what makes dogs so invaluable to humans and why they are trainable whereas wolves aren't. The narrator in the Nova documentary says, "Dogs appear to be, not just loving, but almost, indiscriminately affectionate. New research suggests that this could be partly because dogs get flooded with the “love hormone,” oxytocin. And the reason for that may lie partly with some very special genes." Evidently there was a gene mutation which turned wolves into dogs.

The young woman with Williams syndrome, Callie Truelove, exhibits the traits of lovingness and empathy. The narrator says, "Callie radiates an incredible warmth towards the people around her." Her mother chimes in, "She just loves people. From the time she was able to go to somebody by herself she’s always been very friendly." While some of the symptoms of Williams syndrome are debilitating, the ability to love and be loved isn't one of them. Callie says, "I love each and every single human being on this whole entire world. If I could just hug all of them at once I would, ‘cause I love them so much."

Callies's father says, "She absolutely does love every single person that she meets. I’ve pastored a church for 20 years, and Callie has reached more people, just with her everyday life, than I possibly could in a lifetime." The narrator says, "Callie’s hyper-sociability is a side effect of her condition, tied to changes in three genes, one of which supercharges oxytocin levels." Again I wonder if using gene therapy, could the human race be modified so that only this gene was changed making humans more loving and empathetic without the other gene changes that Williams syndrome people exhibit which are more debilitating. If so, would the human race become over time more empathetic and less warlike? Would there finally be "Peace on earth. Goodwill towards all." If there were more Callies, this certainly would be possible.

Now more than ever we need more people like Callie in the world with higher levels of oxytocin if the world is to survive global warming. We must cooperate on a supercharged level if we are to enable the survival of future generations. Right now it seems that humans are only focused on maximizing the benefits of their present day lifestyles that require the perpetuation of fossil fuel usage and only marginally interested in doing something about climate change. I wonder what Callie would say about this.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a record high Monday, a reading from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that elicited fresh calls from climate activists and scientists for the international community to end planet-heating emissions from fossil fuels and deforestation.

According to NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory, an atmospheric baseline station in Hawaii, the daily average of CO2 levels on Feb. 10 was 416.08 parts per million. In recent years, soaring rates of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have signaled that the world is not ambitiously addressing the climate crisis.

Bearly a blip in the news.

We have officially hit 416.08 ppm #CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere on February 10, 2020. HIGHEST EVER daily average... ever. Its up from 411.97 ppm a year ago.

Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg, who founded the global youth-led climate action movement Fridays for Future, tweeted Tuesday of NOAA's new finding that "the saddest thing is that this won't be breaking news."

"And basically no one understands the full meaning of this. Because we're in a crisis that's never been treated as a crisis," added the 17-year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

Thunberg was not alone in using social media to draw attention to the figure. Belgian climate scientist Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, who has been involved with multiple reports from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, wrote on Twitter Tuesday that the record was not something "to be proud of."

Instead, van Ypersele said, it is a reminder that "emissions from fossil fuels and deforestation need to be reduced to ZERO to stop this trend!"

A German-based Parents for Future group—made up of adults who support the movement Thunberg founded—shared the new number alongside a video of children calling for bold climate action.

The video features several children mouthing along to a speech that Thunberg delivered in December 2018 at the U.N. COP24 climate talks in Poland. Calling for systemic change on a global scale to the tackle the climate emergency, Thunberg warned in her address that "we cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis."

The United Kingdom's national weather service, the Met Office, warned in January that "a forecast of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide shows that 2020 will witness one of the largest annual rises in concentration since measurements began at Mauna Loa, in Hawaii, 1958."

The Met Office said that "the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is expected to peak above 417 parts per million in May," noting that the anticipated increase is due in part to emissions from the bushfires that have devastated large swaths of Australia since late last year.

"Although the series of annual levels of CO2 have always seen a year-on-year increase since 1958, driven by fossil fuel burning and deforestation, the rate of rise isn't perfectly even because there are fluctuations in the response of ecosystem carbon sinks, especially tropical forests," explained professor Richard Betts of the Met Office Hadley Center and University of Exeter.

"The success of our previous forecasts has shown that the year-to-year variability in the rate of rise of CO2 in the atmosphere is affected more by the strength of ecosystem carbon sinks and sources than year-to-year changes in human-induced emissions," he added. "Nevertheless, the anthropogenic emissions are still the overall driver of the long-term rise in concentrations."

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The next President has to mandate the full scale replacement of the current infrastructure with infrastructure supplied with renewable electricity. That means only plug-in cars and trucks allowed on the road. All rail transit is electrified. Planes to be grounded until they figure out how to supply them with renewable energy. All ships must be mandated to use only wind or electric energy supplied by renewables. Mass public electrified transit built out. Only this type of extreme effort is going to save earth from a global warming catastrophe. Forget self driving cars and trucks. The energy and inventiveness has to go into full electric vehicles driven by actual human beings.

Fossil fuels have to be eliminated overnight. How's that for a Brave New World - one which will actually save the planet from a horrible denouement. The next President and Congress have to put the economy at a lower priority than the full scale rejuvenation and renewable electrification of the economy. Economic growth has to take second place to investment in a green economy. Zero fossil fuel emissions have to be accomplished literally overnight as if someone had a gun to our head because, quite literally, a gun is at the head of every human living today and who will be born in the next 10 years - a gun placed there by the greed and ambition of the human race.

But doing this full on attack on global warming in the US is not enough. It must be carried out in the rest of the world in association with global partners. Instead of the militarization of the world by US forces and unending wars, which is the kind of scenario the US has perpetrated on the rest of the world in the recent past, the fight in cooperation with the rest of the world must be on global warming. We must renewably electricfy the rest of the world getting coal fired power plants offline and replacing them with renewable energy resources. This must be mandated, dictated if you will. The future of life on earth is at stake.

If there is an economic slump while this transformation takes place, so be it. At least there will be plenty of jobs. Robots can't do it all. There will be plenty of pick and shovel work. Trinkets and gadgets may be in short supply while this work gets done, but so be it. The US may have to go from a 70% consumption economy to a 70% investment economy - an investment in a renewably electrified future. At the same time clean water and sanitation should be guaranteed as a human right to every person in the world. Instead of reigning destruction on the world community, which is the US' wont, the world community must be salvaged from dirty water and lack of sanitation. A clean non-industrialized food supply must be guaranteed to all. Adequate housing supplied with renewable energy must be guaranteed to all as a human right.

You think there is a lot of work that needs tom be done? You're right. There won't be any unemployment. This Globalized Green New Deal for the world should be all encompassing. There was a well driller from my home town whose motto was "It Must Be Dunn" and that should be the motto for the green electrification of the whole world: It Must Be Done.

February 11, 2020

Trump is trying to make his reelection all about the economy. In 1992 James Carville uttered the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid.” Carville was a strategist in Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign against incumbent George H. W. Bush. It may have been about the economy then, but now it's about global warming. If we don't make this the top issue, then there may be no economy in the coming years.

The economy as it presently exists is antithetical to an economy in which the campaign against global warming has the highest priority. Why? Because the economy as it presently exists is based on oil. How can politicians not have noticed this? How can they say they want to fight global warming and then turn around and say we want to do more fracking or we want to export more oil? Making the fight against global warming the highest priority means that we will have to sanction the production and use of oil. We might have to ban gas guzzlers and only allow hybrid or fully electric cars on the road. What if the state of California restricted gas burning car use? What if they hugely incentivized the use of mass transit where it existed or built more where it didn't exist?

San Diego has a good trolley, bus and light rail system. The only problem is hardly anyone except poor people use it. It could be mandated that cars could only be used 2 days a week, for example. Then people would be forced to use public transit. Greenhouse gas emissions would then be radically reduced which is what needs to happen. Continuing on the present course will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact they are increasing year after year even despite the widespread knowledge that they are driving climate change and causing more wildfires and floods. Despite the fact that many cities are now experiencing sunny day flooding and will only see more and more incidences of that as time goes on if nothing substantial is done, American society is still leaving it up to the free market system to solve the problem which it is not doing.

People in the fossil fuel industry do need to lose their jobs. Those people can be transitioned to other jobs in a Green New Deal, but the nation needs to be put on the same footing as it was put on during the Great Depression when drastic action was taken. The problem is that in the fossil fuel economy we have right now there are plenty of jobs. During the Great Depression most Americans were on the same page that drastic action needed to be taken because they didn't have jobs. Now most people want to hang onto their jobs. Rather than being for a drastic shakeup of the economy, they would rather continue business as usual and convince themselves that either global warming doesn't exist or that a gradual market based approach will solve the problem. Then there are those who don't care if the earth becomes uninhabitable some day because they think they'll probably not be around to see it. Therefore, they want to maximize the benefits to their lifestyle while they're still here rather than make any sacrifices for future generations.

We might as well say sayonara to the earth and future generations if we don't as a society get behind a candidate like Bernie Sanders who is the most likely candidate to radically change the economy in terms of a Green New Deal. The idea is to take drastic action to change the economy from an oil oriented economy to an economy based on renewable energy. Included in the concept is the transitioning of workers to jobs in the new economy. Will enough workers get behind this concept or will all they see is the fact that they will be losing their present jobs and vote to hang onto them at any cost, that cost being the sacrifice of future generations to a horrible demise on an uninhabitable earth?

February 10, 2020

We need to get off of fossil fuels and convert to renewables in the next 10 years. Otherwise, the planet will be lost to runaway global warming. Yet the government is still giving huge subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. The subsidies should be going to the development and implementartion of renewable energy resources. Conservative estimates put US direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at roughly $20 billion per year; with 20 percent currently allocated to coal and 80 percent to natural gas and crude oil. European Union subsidies are estimated to total 55 billion euros annually. Why do industries that have been around forever need to be subsidized? The answer is they have effective lobbyists, and they give campaign contributions to Congress persons who see to it that subsidies for fossil fuels are slipped into the annual budget.

Under a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren administration those subsidies would be stopped immediately. Also the US should place sanctions on any country that subsidizes the fossil fuel industry including the European Union. The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) reports:

There is a long history of government intervention in energy markets. Numerous energy subsidies exist in the U.S. tax code to promote or subsidize the production of cheap and abundant fossil energy. Some of these subsidies have been around for a century, and while the United States has enjoyed unparalleled economic growth over the past 100 years—thanks in no small part to cheap energy—in many cases, the circumstances relevant at the time subsidies were implemented no longer exist. Today, the domestic fossil fuel industries (namely, coal, oil and natural gas) are mature and generally highly profitable. Additionally, numerous clean and renewable alternatives exist, which have become increasingly price-competitive with traditional fossil fuels.

The 116th Congress is weighing potential policy mechanisms to reduce the impact of climate change and cap global warming to an internationally agreed upon target of no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). As a result, fossil fuel tax subsidies, as well as other mechanisms of support, have received additional scrutiny from lawmakers and the public regarding their current suitability, scale and effectiveness. Indeed, the subsidies undermine policy goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. ...

But rather than being phased out, fossil fuel subsidies are actually increasing. The latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) report estimates 6.5 percent of global GDP ($5.2 trillion) was spent on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017, a half trillion dollar increase since 2015. The largest subsidizers are China ($1.4 trillion in 2015), the United States ($649 billion) and Russia ($551 billion). According to the IMF, "fossil fuels account for 85 percent of all global subsidies," and reducing these subsidies "would have lowered global carbon emissions by 28 percent and fossil fuel air pollution deaths by 46 percent, and increased government revenue by 3.8 percent of GDP." An Overseas Development Institute study found that subsidies for coal-fired power increased almost three-fold, to $47.3 billion per year, from 2014 to 2017.

What is the world thinking? Radical action would phase out all subsidies to the fossil fuel industry immediately and give tax breaks and subsidies to the renewable energy industry. Plus the US should put sanctions on countries still subsidizing their fossil fuels while offering technical assistance in their development of renewable energy resources. If the US has a bone to pick with Russia or China, it should be over their continued subsidies of their fossil fuel industries not over the vacuous and nonsensical stuff they they currently agonize over.

The US' determination to make pariahs out of Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela and others, all of whom have huge oil industries is the way to guarantee that fossil fuel production will eventuate in runaway global warming. Instead of subsidizing the production of renewable energy and exporting it around the world and using our influence to stop fossil fuel production in the rest of the world, we are doing the exact opposite. We are subsidizing not only the fossil fuel industry but also the military-industrial complex which fuels hostility and animosity with other countries and gives them carte blanche to go ahead with their oil and fossil fuel production. In order to save the world from global warming, it is imperative that we turn perceived enemies into friends so that the whole world can cooperate on this situation which affects the whole world. Otherwise, earth will become uninhabitable in a relatively short period of time.

February 08, 2020

The survey, which also showed that young people are stressed about the planetary emergency and how it affects their lives, comes after Iowa caucusgoers indicated the issue is a top priority for voters.

The youth-led Sunrise Movement held a three-day protest in July 2019 outside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee to demand a climate-specific 2020 debate. (Photo: Sunrise Movement)

New polling results published Thursday revealed that a majority of U.S. adults believe climate change is the most important issue facing society, have made an effort to reduce their contribution to the global crisis, and are willing to vote for a candidate based on their position on the topic.

Among those aged 18–34, 47% indicated that "the stress they feel about climate change affects their daily lives."

The American Psychological Association (APA) survey—conducted in December 2019 by the Harris Poll—comes on the heels of Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses for this year's presidential race, where entrance polling showed that the climate crisis was the second-most important issue to caucusgoers, behind healthcare.

According to the online APA poll, 56% of respondents said climate change is the most important issue, 60% have changed a behavior to cut their contribution—such as reducing waste, using renewable energy, and altering transportation or diet choices—and 62% are willing to vote for a political candidate based on their climate position.

The survey showed that people were most motivated to change their behavior based on a desire to preserve the planet for future generations (52%) and after hearing news reports about the climate crisis and its impacts like more devastating extreme weather (43%). APA also found that respondents, particularly those aged 18–34, are stressed about how the planetary emergency impacts their lives.

More than two-thirds of all adults surveyed (68%) said that they have at least a little "eco-anxiety," which Oxford Dictionaries defines as "extreme worry about current and future harm to the environment caused by human activity and climate change." Among those aged 18–34, 47% indicated that "the stress they feel about climate change affects their daily lives."

In a statement announcing the poll results, APA chief executive officer Arthur C. Evans Jr. said that "the health, economic, political, and environmental implications of climate change affect all of us. The tolls on our mental health are far reaching."

"As climate change is created largely by human behavior," Evans added, "psychologists are continuing to study ways in which we can encourage people to make behavioral changes—both large and small—so that collectively we can help our planet."

Concern about #climatechange may be having an impact on #mentalhealth, with 68% of U.S. adults saying they have at least a little “eco-anxiety” and 47% of those age 18-34 saying the stress they feel affects their daily lives.

The number of young American adults stressed about the climate crisis, as captured in the APA's new survey, could have an impact on upcoming political contests in the United Sates, including the Democratic presidential primary race and the general election in November.

The nation is still waiting on the final outcome of the Iowa caucuses due to a debacle with collecting and reporting the results. However, the data released so far from 97% of precincts—which are "riddled with inconsistencies and other flaws," according to a New York Times analysis—show Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leading the popular vote while effectively tied with former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg when it comes to state delegates.

Entrance polling from Iowa reported by the Washington Post showed that 21% of caucusgoers said climate change was the "most important issue" in the vote. That compared with 42% who said healthcare, 18% who said income inequality, and 13% who said foreign policy. That polling also showed 37% of participants were first-time caucusgoers and the youth voter share rose a third from 2016.

Responding to those results in a statement Tuesday, the youth-led Sunrise Movement—which endorsed Sanders last month—said that "we don't yet know everything that happened last night—but we do know this: there is a broad, widespread mandate for the Green New Deal, and Iowans turned out in force last night to make sure presidential candidates don't forget it."

"We're particularly proud of the historic levels of turnout among young people who caucused last night, many of whom were brought into the movement by our efforts to engage them in college classes and high school gyms across the state," Sunrise said. "The level of youth turnout and concern about climate change in the Iowa entrance polls is incredible It's a major mark of success for our Iowa team's work these past six months. They got 7,000 young people to pledge to vote for the Green New Deal, organized hundreds of volunteers, and canvassed thousands of people across the state."

Now, all eyes are on New Hampshire, which will hold the nation's second nominating contest on Feb. 11. The Sunrise Movement took to Twitter Thursday to share a report from The New Republicentitled "The Youth Climate Movement Comes to New Hampshire."

New Hampshire is the first primary in the country, and people have been coming from all over the country to help get out the vote.

Many of the volunteers and organizers spoke of the difficulty balancing urgency and sustainability in building a youth movement. Climate anxiety can be either a motivating or paralyzing factor. "Sometimes you're thinking ahead about the future, and then you're like, Oh, but is that even going to exist then?" said Esther, 16, from New Jersey. "Like, fuck, New York City is going to be underwater in 50 years, according to these reports."

Though it takes a personal toll, a sense of urgency may be needed to address the climate crisis, the report noted. "The only time that we have seen substantial change in society," Dana Fisher, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies the environment and American protest movements, said, "is when there is this extreme sense of risk that either comes from a true disaster or a sense that a disaster is looming."

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China is helping underdeveloped African countries to develop. They are building railroads, ports, infrastructure in general. They are loaning these countries the money and putting Chinese workers to work. It's called the Belt and Road initiative. For the most part this effort is laudable. It represents peaceful development as opposed to military control, monetary sanctions or corporate exploitation which is what most African countries had been used to in the past. However, there is at least one negative consequence of these developments. China is building hundreds of coal-fired power plants in these countries? This is at a time when the world must be reducing its use of fossil fuels to forestall global warming.

Recently, President Xi Jinping hosted the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, promoting his signature foreign policy of building massive infrastructure and trade links across several continents. China, as the world's biggest polluter, has also been taking dramatic steps to clean up and fight climate change in China. The forum, attended by leaders and delegates of nearly 40 countries, came amid growing criticism of China's projects, including their effect on the environment. The UN estimates the world needs to reduce its coal-fired electricity by two-thirds in the next decade to meet our climate goals. So what's wrong with this picture and what can be done about it?

First, instead of treating China as an adversary and a rival, the US could partner with China in building power generating plants, but, instead of coal powered ones, plants that generate electricity from renewable sources such as solar, wind and geothermal. This would be a win-win-win for Africa, China and the US. Some of the Democratic candidates have pledged to do just that. According to Bernie Sanders we should "Commit to reducing emissions throughout the world, including providing $200 billion to the Green Climate Fund, rejoining the Paris Agreement, and reasserting the United States’ leadership in the global fight against climate change." That's right. Instead of using our high polluting military to fight everywhere in the world, we should establish a Belt and Road initiative of our own not in rivalry with China, but instead in cooperation with China. Combined the efforts of these two great nations could make a huge difference both in the development of underdeveloped parts of the world but also in terms of reducing the effects of climate change by making sure that that development is not based on energy derived from fossil fuels like coal and oil.

At present China is building or planning more than 300 coal plants in places as widely spread as Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt and the Philippines. I'm sure these countries welcome these investments, but these power plants need to be built so that they generate power from renewable sources and not coal. "China has done a very good job of emphasizing the target of greening the Belt and Road," said Courtney Weatherby, a Southeast Asia analyst at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. "But it's not clear when you look at the actual projects that China is funding that they are truly green."

In neighboring Vietnam — a country highly dependent on coal — China is a major investor in the energy sector. China is involved in 15 coal power plants in operation, six under construction and at least two in the planning stages, according to Nguyen Thi Hang with Hanoi-based environmental group Green Innovation and Development Centre. "China's investments in Vietnam is both good and bad but it is also coupled with negative impacts on people's health and livelihoods," Nguyen said.

There is still a question of how to supply energy sustainably. If China falls short, Chinese officials at least know they can expect scant criticism on coal investments from the U.S. government. President Trump's administration has also been promoting coal.

The US needs to partner with China in green development projects that can benefit the entire world while promoting the growth of renewable energy projects and eliminating fossil fuel projects. This would do a lot to bring peaceful cooperation to the world as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving the planet from global warming. This means a Green New Deal as part and parcel of our foreign policy instead of a foreign policy based on militarism and weaponizing the dollar by the use of sanctions. There is a great potential for bringing genuine peace to the world by cooperating with other countries in a world wide Green New Deal. This would save the planet not only from climate change but from militaristic rivalry and destruction not to mention the waste of resources. There is the potential for peace among all the earth's nations and peoples if all are working together on a worldwide Green New Deal.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, speaks during a State of the Union response on February 4, 2020 in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

After President Donald Trump bragged during his State of the Union address about the "tremendous progress" the United States has made in increasing production of planet-warming fossil fuels under his administration, Sen. Bernie Sanders late Tuesday condemned the president for worsening the global climate crisis and imperiling future generations with his industry-friendly agenda.

"How do you give a speech, a State of the Union speech, and not mention climate change when the leading scientists of the world tell us that climate change is the greatest existential threat facing humanity?" asked Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, during his official response to Trump's remarks. "I did not hear the president say what it means when Australia is now on fire because of severe drought, and about the unprecedented level of flooding and extreme weather disturbances that we are experiencing."

"By ignoring and in fact exacerbating the crisis of climate change, President Trump is turning his back on the children of America and on future generations, and dooming them to live in a planet increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable," continued Sanders, who did not attend the president's speech. "It is truly sad that we have a president of the United States lacks the courage to stand up to his billionaire friends in the fossil fuel industry."

According to an Oil Change International report released last year, the U.S. is on pace to account for 60 percent of the global growth in fossil fuel production between 2019 and 2030 in the absence of aggressive action to transition away from oil and gas.

During his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Trump boasted that "thanks to our bold regulatory reduction campaign, the United States has become the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world, by far"—an alarming milestone that was in fact reached under the Obama administration.

"We are doing numbers that no one would have thought possible just three years ago," Trump proclaimed.

We only have ten years left to save ourselves from the climate crisis.

Trump is literally boasting about how the US is killing our planet faster by pumping out natural gas and oil.#SOTU

Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Action, said in a statement following the president's speech that "Trump's 'energy independence' rhetoric is nothing more than a celebration of climate disaster."

"Fracking and the building of related fossil fuel projects are driving up emissions at the moment we must rapidly transition off fossil fuels," said Hauter. "Americans overwhelmingly support policies to create clean, renewable energy. Trump is hell-bent on delivering the exact opposite."

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February 03, 2020

In order to save the planet from global warming, we may have to go back to how life was in preindustrial times circa 1860. Before the era of the automobile, the airplane, industrialized food and electricity. The first oil well was discovered in 1859. After that it's been downhill all the way insofar as planet earth is concerned. Smokestack industries have been spewing greenhouse gasses into the fragile atmosphere. Cars, airplanes, coal burning steam locomotives, coal fired electricity generating plants - all the appurtenances of modern life including labor saving appliances have been contributing to the destruction of earth's atmosphere with the consequence of global warming. Plastic produced from petrochemicals is polluting the ocean. Viewed form the perspective of the long term viability of earth as a place of habitability for human beings and other species, oil and coal have been more of a curse than a blessing. Modern life, industrialized life has been a tragedy for Mother Earth, and will have contributed to its destruction as a place for humans to live in less than 200 years from the discovery of oil unless drastic action is taken.

To the extent that renewable energy can be brought online, we may not have to give up all the appurtenances. However, most Americans will not voluntarily give up their way of life. It's ingrained in the American way that we should have more energy consuming goddies and gadgets than our parents had. That's the meaning of progress. We can't regress, can we? Besides, Americans are taught to maximize their own personal success, profit and benefit. For example, Wall Street is only interested in short term profits, not the long term livability of the human habitat we call earth. We have been ingrained that we should be free to pursue our own advantage. To think that now Americans will be asked to sacrifice to save the planet for future generations is almost unthinkable.

Instead of a future utopia on planet earth, the stage has been set for dystopia. Instead of saving the planet for all people and for future generations, the American playbook, unless there are drastic changes, will be to save the planet for rich Americans and to hell with the rest of the world. If people have to die, the US will see to it that rich Americans are safe, well fed and well protected from the ravages of climate change. People elsewhere on the planet will not be so protected or kept safe. In fact if history is any example, they will continue to be exploited for the benefit of rich Americans so that they can maintain the lifestyle they feel they are entitled to.

As sea levels rise, American corporations will just continue operation in the midwest, well away from the sea coasts. As New York City becomes a waterlogged ghost town, Wall Street will just relocate to Chicago or Des Moines, no problem. Headquarter locations are fungible. While the rest of the nation is fed industrialized food, the rich will eat organic food grown on small farms the way it was in the preindustrial age. As some vacation spots in the world become uninhabitable, others will open up perhaps farther north. Siberia may become the next playground for the rich. Desalination plants will provide pure water for a limited number of people as the rivers which have historically provided drinking water dry up for lack of snow pack or glaciers.

In short instead of the hardships being shared mutually among all people on the planet, they will be visited on the lower classes the way they have always been. The ruling powers, whether it be the American Empire or some other empire, will see to that. The ideals of freedom and liberty will be in name only and mainly exercised by the upper classes while the rest of the people will be propagandized to think that they are free. As the Romans pacified their population with bread and circuses, modern dystopian society will make poor people work overtime for bread while providing circuses galore by means of mass media. The salinity of drinking water in some parts of the world as well as the acidification of the ocean which killed all the crustaceans will be of no concern to rich Americans who will have their seafood tailor made for them on elaborate farms.

In short, if we continue on our present path, most Americans will value the continuation of their present lifestyles more than the habitability of the planet for future generations. Not maximizing current levels of consumption will be seen as socialistic. Capitalism demands that the emphasis be on short term profits for ourselves not long term viability of the planet for others. If necessary, war can guarantee that only the strongest in military terms will survive.

January 31, 2020

Roger Hallam, a leader in the international struggle against climate change. (Mr. Fish / Truthdig)

If you read only one book this year, it should be Roger Hallam’s “Common Sense for the 21st Century: Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown and Social Collapse.”

Hallam’s lucid and concise book, which echoes Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” says what many of us now know to be true but do not say: If we do not replace the ruling elites soon we are finished as a species. It is a cogent, well-argued case for global rebellion—the only form of resistance that can save us from ecosystem collapse and human-induced genocide. It correctly analyzes the failure of environmentalist activists in groups such as 350.org to understand and confront global corporate power and thus make a meaningful impact as we barrel toward ecocide. “Common Sense for the 21st Century” is a survival manual for the human species.

“The corrupt system is going to kill us all unless we rise up,” Hallam, a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, bluntly warns.

The activism, protests, lobbying, petitions, appeals to the United Nations and misguided trust in “liberal” politicians such as Barack Obama and Al Gore, along with the work of countless NGOs, have been accompanied by a 60% rise in global carbon dioxide emissions since 1990. The United Nations estimates this will be augmented by a 40% rise in CO2 emissions in the next 10 years. Hallam, who has long been a part of the environmental movement, says of his past activism: “I was wasting my time.”

We must reduce carbon emissions by 40% in the next 12 years to have a 50% chance of avoiding catastrophe, according to a report last year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But the ruling elites, as expected, ignored the warning or mouthed empty platitudes. CO2 emissions increased by 1.6% in 2017 and by 2.7% in 2018. Carbon dioxide levels went up by 3.5 parts per million (ppm) last year, reaching 415 ppm. We are only a decade away, Hallam warns, from 450 ppm, the level equivalent to a 2-degree Celsius average temperature rise.

“Let’s be frank about what ‘catastrophe’ actually means in this context,” Hallam writes. “We are looking here at the slow and agonizing suffering and death of billions of people. A moral analysis might go like this: one recent scientific opinion stated that at 5°C above the pre-industrial mean temperature, we are looking at an ecological system capable of sustaining just one billion people. That means 6-7 billion people will have died within the next generation or two. Even if this figure is wrong by 90%, that means 600 million people face starvation and death in the next 40 years. This is 12 times worse than the death toll (civilians and soldiers) of World War Two and many times the death toll of every genocide known to history. It is 12 times worse than the horror of Nazism and Fascism in the 20th century. This is what our genocidal governments around the world are willingly allowing to happen. The word ‘genocide’ might seem out of context here. The word is often associated with ethnic cleansing or major atrocities like the Holocaust. However, the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition reads ‘the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.’ ”

“It is time to grow up and see the world as it is,” Hallam writes. “There are some things which are undeniably real, there are some things we cannot change, and one of those is the laws of physics. Ice melts when the temperature rises. Crops die in a drought. Trees burn in forest fires. Because these things are real, we can also be certain about what the future holds. We are now heading into a period of extreme ecological collapse. Whether or not this leads to the extinction of the human species largely depends upon whether revolutionary changes happen within our societies in the next decade. This is not a matter of ideology, but of simple math and physics.” Hallam points out that most predictions by climate scientists have turned out to be wildly over-optimistic. “… Recent science shows permafrost melting 90 years earlier than forecast and Himalayan glaciers melting twice as fast as expected,” he writes. “Feedbacks and locked-in heating will take us over 2°C even before we factor in additional temperature rises from human-caused emissions over the next ten years.”

“In short, we are fucked—the only question is by how much and how soon?” Hallam continues, “Do we accept this fate? I suggest we do not. Many self-respecting people who can overcome the human failing to disbelieve what they don’t like, now accept what is obvious looking at the natural science. But they have yet to work through the political and social implications.”

Hallam understands that even with reformists in power—and the political mutations caused by neoliberalism have not favored the rise of reformers but instead right-wing demagogues including Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro who accelerate the ecocide—any change will be too incremental and too slow to save us from catastrophe.

“This is not a matter of one’s political party preferences,” Hallam writes. “It is a matter of basic structural sociology. Institutions, like animal species, have limits to how fast they can change. To get rapid change they have to be replaced with new social systems of policy, practice and culture. It is a terrible and painful realization, but it is time to accept our reality.”

It is only by bringing tens of thousands of people onto the streets to disrupt and paralyze the functioning of the state and finance capitalism—in short, a rebellion—that we can save ourselves, he writes. He grasps the fact that the protests must be nonviolent and must focus on governments.

“After one or two weeks following this plan, historical records show that a regime is highly likely to collapse or is forced to enact major structural change,” he writes. “This is due to well-established dynamics of nonviolent political struggle. The authorities are presented with an impossible dilemma. On the one hand they can allow the daily occupation of city streets to continue. This will only encourage greater participation and undermine their authority. On the other hand, if they opt to repress the protestors, they risk a backfiring effect. This is where more people come onto the street in response to the sacrifices of those the authorities have taken off the street. In situations of intense political drama people forget their fear and decide to stand by those who are sacrificing themselves for the common good.”

“The only way out is for negotiations to happen,” he writes. “Only then will a structural opportunity open up for the emergency transformation of the economy that we need. Of course, this proposal is not certain to work but is substantially possible. What is certain, however, is that reformist campaigning and lobbying will totally fail as it has for decades. The structural change we now objectively need has to happen too fast for any conventional strategy.”

No rebellion succeeds, Hallam understands, unless it appeals to a segment within the ruling elite. Once there are divisions in the ruling class, paralysis ensues and ultimately larger and larger fragments of the elite defect to those who are rebelling or refuse to defend a discredited ruling class.

“Mass action cannot just be nonviolent in a physical sense but must also involve active respect towards the public and the opposition, regardless of their repressive responses,” Hallam notes.

He writes specifically of the police:

A proactive approach to the police is an effective way of enabling mass civil disobedience in the present context. This means meeting police as soon as they arrive on the scene and saying two things clearly: “This is a nonviolent peaceful action” and “We respect that you have to do your job here”. We have repeated evidence that this calms down police officers thus opening the way to subsequent civil interactions.

The Extinction Rebellion actions have consistently treated the police in a polite way when we are arrested and at the police stations, engaging in small talk and quite often in political discussions and other topics where activists might have affinity (inequality, unfair pay). If police initially stonewall activists, they can become more open by a willingness to engage with and listen to them.

This engagement can start before an action. Often a face-to-face meeting with police is effective as they are able to understand that the people they are dealing with are reasonable and communicative.

Rebellion will also require repeatedly breaking the law. This will mean time spent in jails and prisons.

“It would be beneficial to the Rebellion for people to be in prison before the major civil resistance event to create national publicity,” writes Hallam, who was jailed for six weeks this fall in London. “The best way of potentially doing this is for people to do repeated acts of peaceful civil disobedience and then read out statements as soon as they enter court, ignoring the judge and court staff. In a loud voice they might say ‘I am duty bound to inform this court that in bringing me here it is complicit in the “greatest crime of all” namely, the destruction of our planet and children due to the corrupt inaction of the governing regime whose will you have chosen to administer. I will not abide by this court’s rules and will now proceed to explain the existential threat facing all life, our families, communities and nation …’ and then start a long speech on the ecological crisis.

“This will likely result in the arrestee being in contempt of court and placed in remand or given a prison sentence. It will be a dilemma for the authorities (depending on the regime) as to how long the remand or sentence would be. If the period of imprisonment is short, then people will be out soon and can continue peaceful civil disobedience. If the sentence is long, it will create a national media drama which will feed into overall rebellion.”

Popular assemblies have to be formed to take power and oversee a dramatic and swift reduction in CO2 emissions.

The science is unequivocal. The temperature increase must be stabilized at between 1 degree C and 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, and CO2 levels must be stabilized at about 350 ppm. We have to find ways to largely eliminate human-created greenhouse gas emissions of all types within a decade, two at the most, and put in place programs to cool the earth, including planting trillions of trees to absorb CO2. One of the easiest and most significant ways an individual can directly reduce his or her environmental impact on the planet is to eat a diet free of animal products. The animal agriculture industry rivals the fossil fuel industry as one of the largest, multi-factorial causes of climate catastrophe.

The danger, Hallam points out, is that if we do not act soon we will trigger runaway climate feedbacks or tipping points at which no effort to curb emissions will succeed. Fossil fuels must be swiftly eliminated from the economy, including through a ban on all new investments in fossil fuel exploration and development. Coal-fired and gas-fired power stations must be shut down within a decade. This process will require a massive reduction in energy use that may have to include rationing.

Hallam is acutely aware that we may fail. It may be too late already, he admits. But not to resist is to be complicit in this act of genocide. Hallam understands global corporate power. He knows how to fight it. The rest is up to us.

Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor in the college degree program offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers University, and an ordained Presbyterian minister. He has written 12 books, including the New York Times best-seller “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012), which he co-authored with the cartoonist Joe Sacco. His other books include "Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt," (2015) “Death of the Liberal Class” (2010), “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009), “I Don’t Believe in Atheists” (2008) and the best-selling “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2008). His latest book is "America: The Farewell Tour" (2018). His book “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and has sold over 400,000 copies. He writes a weekly column for the website Truthdig and hosts a show, "On Contact," on RT America.

Animal Agriculture Industry Rivals Fossil Fuel Industry as one of the Largest Causes of Climate Catastrophe

by John Lawrence, January 31, 2020

In Chris Hedges brilliant accompanying article he says, "One of the easiest and most significant ways an individual can directly reduce his or her environmental impact on the planet is to eat a diet free of animal products." Another is to eat organic as much as possible. Not only will it be better for the planet, it will be better for you personally. The industrial food industry has been a problem for almost as long as the fossil fuel industry. The first oil well was discovered in 1859. After the Civil War, the meat packing industry was started, made possible by the railroads which could distribute meat to the rapidly growing urban areas. Armour and Swift meats were concentrated in Chicago's Union Stockyards in 1865. So the industrialization of food and the industrialization of oil started the same time about 150 years ago. That's when the human race started pumping huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere resulting in the global warming and environmental crisis we face today. Henry Ford got his idea for the assmbly line for automobiles from the assembly line production of meat products pioneered by Armour and Swift.

From the beginning meat packing and the other industrialized food products were laden with impurities. A chemist, Harvey Wiley, showed that honey and maple syrup were nothing more than corn syrup modified with a few chemicals. Foods including meat were preserved with formaldehyde. Borax was added to milk to hide the fact that it was sour. The meat packing industry was so unsanitary that people were getting sick eating industrialized food products. Prior to the Civil War most food was produced on local farms and not shipped miles in railroad cars to urban centers. Hence it was organic by definition since chemical weed killers and pesticides had not been invented yet. As food became more industrialized, Monsanto got into the act and industrialized farms started spraying foods with chemicals. In 1906 Upton Sinclair's novel, "The Jungle" brought the attention of the general public to the deplorable conditions in the meat packing industry.

Eventually, thanks to Harvey Wiley and Upton Sinclar mostly, the landmark Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was enacted. Of course the titans of industry were very much against it. It was government interference in free enterprise. It was socialism. But finally they were required to list ingredients on the label. Today we still are dealing with the situation of adulterated food, food contaminated with preservatives, animal feedlots that are unsanitary, food contaminated with e coli and other pathogens. Monsanto's glyphosate, a known carcinogen, is sprayed liberally on crops. Food additives, both to preserve them and make them look and taste better, are still arrows in the quiver of the food industry. The fast food industry consumes huge quantities of beef products. The general public is ignorant of proper nutrition much less the difference between the health benefits of organic versus nonorganic foods.

The general public is also ignorant of the fact that industrialized animal products are not only contributing to global warming, but also to the growing ineffectiveness of antibiotics due to the fact that animals are fed antibiotics to make them grow faster so they can be slaughtered quicker thus contributing to greater profits.

The question is will Americans and other advanced societies cut out their consumption of meat, encourage the recreation of organic family farms, lead healthier lifestyles and reduce consumption of products dependent on fossil fuels in order to save the planet from runaway global warming? If they did, they would be healthier and the planet would definitely be healthier. Otherwise, we will long for the days of preindustrialized America and all the "progress" that has taken place since then will just be seen as a mess of pottage, a Biblical reference, by the way. A mess of pottage is something immediately attractive but of little value taken foolishly and carelessly in exchange for something more distant and perhaps less tangible but immensely more valuable (Wikipedia). Technological progress has by and large been a mess of pottage if it means that in return for 150 years of industrialized toys and goodies, we will have destroyed the earth for future generations.

A home burns as the Camp Fire moves through the area on Nov. 9, 2018 in Magalia, California. Fueled by high winds and low humidity, the rapidly spreading Camp Fire ripped through the town of Paradise and has quickly charred 70,000 acres and has destroyed numerous homes and businesses in a matter of hours. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Environmental advocacy groups issued mixed responses Tuesday after Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee released the legislative text of a draft bill for a national climate plan, with critics charging that the proposal isn't ambitious enough to address the planetary crisis.

"At a moment when we need bold, decisive action from Democrats in Congress in order to stand a chance of averting climate catastrophe, Rep. Pallone and the House Energy and Commerce Committee have come up far short. Simply put, this legislation is a 'green new dud,' not a Green New Deal."—Mitch Jones, Food & Water Action

The draft Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for our Nation (CLEAN) Future Act—largely seen as a "competing plan" to the Green New Deal—was announced earlier this month by the committee's chair, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). Crafted after 15 committee hearings, the bill (pdf) aims to ensure that the United States achieves net-zero greenhouse gas pollution by 2050.

In a joint statement with Reps. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) and Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Pallone said Tuesday that "every day, communities across the country are paying the price for inaction through record wildfires, flooding, and drought, and Congress cannot afford to simply watch from the sidelines."

"The CLEAN Future Act treats this climate crisis like the emergency that it is, while also setting the foundation for strengthening our economy and creating good paying jobs for a clean and climate-resilient future," they added. "We look forward to continuing to work with all impacted stakeholders on this proposal in the coming months."

Food & Water Action policy director Mitch Jones was quick to provide critical feedback with a statement of his own Tuesday.

"At a moment when we need bold, decisive action from Democrats in Congress in order to stand a chance of averting climate catastrophe, Rep. Pallone and the House Energy and Commerce Committee have come up far short," he said. "Simply put, this legislation is a 'green new dud,' not a Green New Deal."

Detailing some of the ways in which the CLEAN Future Act falls short of adequately addressing the crisis, Jones added:

This proposed clean electricity goal represents a wholly inadequate approach that would allow for the continued long-term use of an array of dirty energy sources—including fracked gas with unproven, undeveloped 'carbon capture' methods. A 'technology-neutral' approach leaves us primed for decades more greenhouse gas emissions.

A bold climate plan must call for a ban on fracking and all new fossil fuel infrastructure, and a swift and just transition to 100 percent clean, renewable energy across all sectors of the economy. We have no time to rely on market-based schemes, dubious offset programs, or unproven carbon capture technologies designed to prolong the life of the fossil fuel industry.

The committee's release of the legislative text came just a day after Friends of the Earth U.S. and the Partnership for Policy Integrity published an analysis detailing the "dirty secrets" of the proposal based on the information about the plan that had been publicized up until that point.

As Common Dreamsreported Monday, the analysis called the CLEAN Future Act "extremely disappointing" and "a failure of climate leadership," and even suggested that it "should really be called the Dirty Future Act."

Referencing the new analysis, Friends of the Earth doubled down on its criticism of the measure in a statement Tuesday. Lukas Ross, a senior policy analyst with the group, said that "Chairman Pallone needs to do far more to protect communities and the climate."

"The proposed starting point for his clean electricity standard is startlingly high. Fossil fuels must be kept in the ground, not kept in business. Emissions trading schemes and other market gimmicks are unjust and ineffective," said Ross. "Pallone is posing as an environmentalist, while trying to keep the door wide open for fracked gas. This is the opposite of climate leadership."

Some advocacy organizations were more welcoming of the proposal. Andrea McGimsey, senior director for Environment America's Global Warming Solutions campaign, said Tuesday that "this bill has the ability to serve as a strong step forward in focusing the national conversation toward getting real solutions on the ground and cutting carbon emissions as quickly as possible."

Rob Cowin, director of government affairs for the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, echoed that sentiment and highlighted some of the bill's accomplishments.

"Climate change is already affecting people around the country and the science shows we need to make swift, deep cuts in heat-trapping emissions across the economy to help limit its harmful impacts," he said. "While not comprehensive, the CLEAN Future Act is a thoughtful start to developing climate legislation that addresses the scale and scope of the problem."

Cowin applauded the bill's "strong focus on environmental justice, workforce development, modernizing our electric grid and reducing emissions from the transportation sector," and expressed support for "policies to increase vehicle electrification and reduce heat-trapping emissions from all cars and trucks."

"Finally, the legislation includes a national clean energy standard that could be transformational if designed well," he concluded. "A national clean energy standard must not increase our reliance on natural gas generation, as natural gas use economy-wide now contributes more to U.S. carbon emissions than coal. We will continue to work towards enacting legislation consistent with the science and that will provide a just and equitable transition to a clean energy economy."

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Cognitive Dissonance: Oil, the Basis of our Economy, Causes Global Warming. We Must Stop Using Oil. What Does This Mean for our Economy?

by John Lawrence, January 29, 2020

It's unthinkable that we would just keep using fossil fuels and let the earth burn up, but fossil fuels are the basis of our economy. The solution is to totally restructure the economy as we have known it. That's a big task which not everyone is in favor of. In stark terms would you like to lower your lifestyle by a factor of 2 in order to save the planet? Not many people would, and not many people would vote for that. Global warming is already impacting the planet in terms of extreme weather and climate catastrophes. Fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, extreme heat, drought, loss of habitat, acidification of oceans, these are just a few of the anomalies besetting our planet.

Up to now, however, all these disasters collectively have only affected a minority of the people of the earth. Those who have been affected have suffered greatly. The loss of a home to a fire, the loss of a whole town as in the Paradise fire, still the majority of people have not been affected. Puerto Rico, Haiti and other Caribbean islands have been wiped out, but still the majority of people in America have not been affected. Crop failures and habitat loss have affected people elsewhere, but still our supermarkets are well stocked, our economy is still booming, FedEx trucks roam the streets delivering packages. There is no shortage of consumer items.

There is not a sense of urgency regarding climate change, and there is a sense of foreboding regarding the sacrifices that must be made to restore planet earth to some sort of natural balance. Fossil fuels need to be replaced by renewables, but will this change be shockingly abrupt or will it come about gradually. If it comes about gradually, it may be too little, too late, to prevent the dreaded "tipping point" at which planet earth will not be able to recover from runaway climate change. Must drastic action be taken and how will this affect the stock market? How will it affect a consumer economy like that in the US? Will there be a recession? A depression? How will this affect property values? Taxes? The stock market?

The economy must be totally restructured, but not only in America ... in the entire world. The world economy is predicated on the dollar being the world's reserve currency. What is the meaning of a reserve currency when major parts of the world are burning up? What happens to property values when large areas of property are suddenly subjected to huge increases in insurance because they are either in a fire zone or a flood zone? What happens to the stock market if Wall Street is under water for weeks at a time which is entirely thinkable because it has already happened but not for weeks fortunately. Will the President use sanctions to make sure Americans have the resources and products they need at the expense of other peoples and nations? Will he call out the military to make sure we are adequately supplied when there are scarce supplies?

During the Great Depression radical measures were taken to get the economy back on its feet again, but there was no need to address the destruction of planet earth concomitantly. Now there is a need to do both, but half the population is in the thrall of a climate change denier. We're definitely not all pulling in the same direction. That means that at least 50% of Americans want things to stay as they are and don't believe in, don't care about or refuse to consider the consequences of climate change. Some people allow that climate change is a reality and want something to be done about it as long as it doesn't disrupt their lifestyle too much. How many are willing to put their lives and their lifestyles on the line to forestall climate change?

The people really affected are children and young people who will have to bear the brunt of the disruption if it happens in an uncontrolled and unplanned manner. If it happens because their elders were mainly interested in maintaining their lifestyles and keeping their level of prosperity and didn't want to take radical action, then youth, rightly so, will heap opprobrium and castigation on their elders. They will lose all respect for them. They will say much harsher things than "How dare you!" which was uttered by Greta Thunberg in a recent speech at the United Nations. She also said:

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying.

Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money, and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

She also might have said that we are still giving subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and spending trillions on the military and military-industrial complex. Greta's condemnation is a harbinger of the condemnation which will ultimately be given to those who will maintain the status quo at all costs including the cost of consigning their children to a horrible fate.

An invasion of locusts in the Somali region of Ethiopia in December 2019. (Photo: Petterik Wiggers/FAO)

A massive invasion of desert locusts—partly fueled by the climate crisis—seriously threatens food security in already-vulnerable communities across East Africa and has increasingly alarmed United Nations experts in recent weeks.

"The situation remains extremely serious in the Horn of Africa, where it threatens pastures and crops in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia," says a report (pdf) released last week by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "The current swarms represent an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods in the Horn of Africa."

A swarm contains up to 150 million locusts per square kilometers (0.39 square miles) and can devour enough crops in a day to feed 35,000 people, according to FAO, a U.N. agency. Although "ground and aerial control operations continue in Ethiopia and aerial operations started in Kenya in January," the report notes that "insecurity and a lack of national capacity have hampered control operations in Somalia."

"A potentially threatening situation is developing along both sides of the Red Sea, where ongoing breeding is causing locust numbers to increase on the coasts of Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen," FAO warns. "There is a risk that some swarms could appear in northeast Uganda, southeast South Sudan, and southwest Ethiopia."

Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are being invaded by enormous swarms of desert locusts - the worst infestations in decades.

FAO has called for a "massive, border-spanning campaign" to combat the hundreds of millions of locusts and stop them from spreading to other countries, noting that impacted regions in Ethiopia and Somalia haven't seen swarms of this scale in 25 years and that Kenya hasn't faced a threat on this level in 70 years.

The primary method of battling locust swarms is the aerial spraying of pesticides. FAO's "Locust Watch" service explains that "although giant nets, flamethrowers, lasers, and huge vacuums have been proposed in the past, these are not in use for locust control. People and birds often eat locusts but usually not enough to significantly reduce population levels over large areas."

In response to an FAO request of $70 million "to assist with immediate needs in all three countries, including ramping up control operations as well as implementing measures to safeguard rural livelihoods," the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) agreed on Jan. 24 to release $10 million to the agency.

"This devastating locust outbreak is starting to destroy vegetation across East Africa with alarming speed and ferocity," U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said in a statement announcing the allocation. "Vulnerable families that were already dealing with food shortages now face the prospect of watching as their crops are destroyed before their eyes."

"We must act now," Lowcock added, confirming that the funds will go toward scaling up aerial operations. "If left unchecked, this outbreak has the potential to spill over into more countries in East Africa with horrendous consequences. A swift and determined response to contain it is essential."

East Africa is experiencing the most serious outbreak of locusts in 25 years, posing an unprecedented threat to food security.

The Associated Press, in a report last week, detailed the climate connection to the regional locust crisis:

Heavy rains in East Africa made 2019 one of the region's wettest years on record, said Nairobi-based climate scientist Abubakr Salih Babiker. He blamed rapidly warming waters in the Indian Ocean off Africa's eastern coast, which also spawned an unusual number of strong tropical cyclones off Africa last year.

Heavy rainfall and warmer temperatures are favorable conditions for locust breeding and in this case the conditions have become "exceptional," he said.

Even now rainfall continues in some parts of the vast region. The greenery that springs up keeps the locusts fueled.

"Countries are trying to prepare but this took them by surprise," Babiker said.

Depending on the breeding conditions, AP reported, the swarms of locusts could continue to imperil East Africa until June. That is bad news for a region that, as George Dvorsky noted at EARTHER Friday, is "still recovering from extreme weather."

"[No] less than eight cyclones formed in the basin last year," he explained. "Mozambique was hit the hardest by Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which caused widespread flooding. The heavy rains have come after farmers in East Africa deadly with multiple years of drought. That these locusts are now poised to descend upon recovering crops is truly tragic."

“We don’t need to ‘lower emissions.’ Our emissions have to stop.”

On the first day of this year’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, executives from its 1000 member companies as well as politicians and other world leaders gathered to drum up solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, and pat themselves on the back for their progress in certain areas—like climate change. Into this mix, teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg appeared and castigated them for having any self-congratulatory feelings over the way climate change is being addressed—an increasingly popular talking point for attendees of the conference. Her message: You’re not even close to doing enough, much less assuming that adopting a measured approach is anything to be proud of.

During a panel discussion there, hosted by the New York Times, Thunberg condemned world leaders who may have sounded the alarm on climate, but then followed up with inaction—a display of bad faith, she said. Measuring the distance between abstract claims of concern and a lack of any real structural change, Thunberg said:

“You say children shouldn’t worry. You say: ‘Just leave this to us. We will fix this, we promise we won’t let you down. Don’t be so pessimistic.’ And then, nothing. Silence. Or something worse than silence. Empty words and promises which give the impression that sufficient action is being taken.”

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✔@MotherJones

.@GretaThunberg, to world leaders: “You say children shouldn’t worry. You say: ‘Just leave this to us. We will fix this, we promise we won’t let you down. Don’t be so pessimistic.’ And then, nothing. Silence. Or something worse than silence."

Thunberg’s speech focused on how industrial and political leaders were trying to fold climate awareness into their current business and political systems, rather than acknowledge that only fundamental structural change—a complete world redesign—could effectively address the climate threat. Anything less would be falling short of the ambitious objectives leaders had set for themselves. “We don’t need to ‘lower emissions,'” she said. “Our emissions have to stop.” Countries stalling on meeting the Paris Accord climate goals are a perfect example of lofty rhetoric and negligible follow through. “The fact that we’re all about to fail the commitments you signed up for in the Paris Agreement doesn’t seem to bother the people in power even the least,” she said.

Even when action has been taken, Thunberg said, it’s uneven or has shown that climate change still isn’t being prioritized as it should. “We are not telling you to ‘offset your emissions,'” she said. “By just paying someone else to plant trees in places like Africa while at the same time forests like the Amazon are being slaughtered at an infinitely higher rate.” While those small-scale efforts are a necessary feature for a sustainable future, they’re “nowhere near enough” to substitute for systemic change.

Thunberg set out a list of four demands for the world’s decision-makers—a true litmus test for whether those in charge take the future of sustainability as seriously as they claim to:

“Immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction.

Immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies.

And immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels.

We don’t want these things done by 2050, 2030 or even 2021. We want this done now.”

Whether those demands are met with the expediency Thunberg is calling for seems pretty unlikely. But as the World Economic Forum begins, this 17-year-old activist from Sweden just may have made it impossible for those who attended to pretend they are taking the threat of climate change with the urgency it demands.

January 21, 2020

Will Americans Sacrifice to Save the Planet from Global Warming?

by John Lawrence, January 21, 2020

President Kennedy famously said,"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." That was in 1961. 59 years later we are faced with a problem - global warming - that can't be solved just by Americans taking action within America. We must now ask, "What can you do for your planet?" Global warming makes nationalistic boundaries irrelevant. We must now think of the planet as a whole and come up with global solutions. We are all related, and we are all connected whether we like it or not. We must give up old rivalries, animosities and lifestyles. Will Americans sacrifice their consumerist lifestyles to save the planet for future generations? Don't bet on it.

In 1979 President Jimmy Carter gave a speech asking for Americans to give up their consumerist lifestyles.

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we have discovered that owning things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We have learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

Carter put solar panels on the White House. When Ronald Reagan was elected, he promptly took them down. Global warming was not on either of their radars in those days, but those symbolic acts characterize the two parties' attitudes towards global warming to this day. The Democrats believe the scientists and believe we must do something about global warming post haste. Republicans, and Trump in particular, are global warming deniers. Ronald Reagan delivered the following quote: "Approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation. So let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards for man-made sources." It goes to show his ignorance on the matter. He wanted Americans to have more material goods, not less. "They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been; that the America of the coming years will be a place where — because of our past excesses — it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true. I don't believe that." His dreams were all involved with material accumulation, of course.

George W Bush's response to the 9/11 attacks was "go out and shop!" Time magazine wrote:

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush didn't call for sacrifice. He called for shopping. "Get down to Disney World in Florida," he said. "Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed." Taken on its own, this wasn't such a horrible sentiment. But Boston University historian Andrew Bacevich has made a convincing case that it was part of a broader pattern of encouraging financial irresponsibility. "Bush seems to have calculated — cynically but correctly — that prolonging the credit-fueled consumer binge could help keep complaints about his performance as Commander in Chief from becoming more than a nuisance," Bacevich wrote in the Washington Post in October. Now we're paying the bill.

So the issue of global warming does call for sacrifice. It calls for sacrificing gas guzzlers and instead driving hybrid or full electric cars or taking public mass transpostation. It calls for eating less meat because the factory farm production of cows pollutes the planet compared to eating the same grains that are first run through a cow. It calls for a less consumerist lifestyle, reusing plastic bags and getting away from one use items. It calls for recycling as much waste as possible. It calls for cutting back on air travel and jet fuel pollution. It calls for working with people in the rest of the world, instead of trying to control them, for a common cause and common purpose. It means cutting back on the world's worst polluter - the US military.

All of the measures that need to be taken call for a less consumerist society instead of a using it once and throwing it away society. It calls for young people to join the Peace Corps, a green oriented Peace Corps, instead of a polluting military. It calls for solutions to the problem of waste production by young entrepreneurs. It calls for replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and doing this with a sense of urgency because we don't have much time left to get it right. The Green New Deal encompasses all these concerns. Ramping up this effort must be undertaken with the urgency manifested in the buildup for World War II. All of this will decrease economic activity as we've known it because less things will be bought and sold and more will be reused. We must replace a throw away society with a sustainable society for the future whatever sacrifices in profits and business activity must be made.

A U.N. ruling earlier this month stated that countries cannot send climate refugees back to their home countries if they apply for asylum. (Photo: Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty)

Human rights advocates on Monday applauded a "ground-breaking" ruling by a United Nations panel which stated that climate refugees seeking asylum cannot legally be sent back to their home countries if they face life-threatening conditions due to the climate crisis.

"Without robust national and international efforts, the effects of climate change in receiving states may expose individuals to a violation of their rights," ruled the U.N. Human Rights Committee, "thereby triggering the non-refoulement obligations of sending states."

Amnesty International praised the decision as "good news" and said in a statement that it could help prompt the international community to take concrete action to sharply reduce fossil fuel emissions as quickly as possible in hopes of limiting global warming to 1.5º Celsius.

GOOD NEWS! It's now illegal for governments to return #climate refugees to their home countries, thanks to a landmark ruling by the UN Human Rights Committee. Read more: https://t.co/tsooQN774j

Dan Sohege of the human rights advocacy group Stand for All called the ruling an "excellent step forward in refugee rights."

Excellent step forward in refugee rights. As the challenges facing people evolve so must the definition of "refugee". Whether fleeing war, economic deprivation or climate change, the end result remains the same even if the driving factors for it do not.https://t.co/PqOC3Pp3Rj

The committee handed down its ruling earlier this month in a case brought by Ioane Teitiota, a man who applied for asylum in New Zealand in 2013 after sea level rise and other conditions in his home country of Kiribati forced him and his family to leave.

"The decision sets a global precedent. It says a state will be in breach of its human rights obligations if it returns someone to a country where—due to the climate crisis—their life is at risk, or in danger of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment." —Kate Schuetze, Amnesty International

Kiribati is expected to be uninhabitable in the coming decades—as soon as 10 to 15 years from now, according to Teitiota's case—as rising sea levels leads to overcrowding on the Pacific nation's islands. Teitiota took his case to the committee in 2016 after being deported back to Kiribati by New Zealand's government the previous year.

He argued that the lack of fresh water and difficulty growing crops in Kiribati has caused health problems for him and his family, as well as land disputes.

The committee ultimately rejected Teitiota's case this month, saying in its ruling that since he argued that Kiribati is expected to be uninhabitable in 10 to 15 years, the country and the international community have time to move the population to safety or to make the islands safe.

"The decision sets a global precedent," said Kate Schuetze, Pacific researcher at Amnesty International, in a statement. "It says a state will be in breach of its human rights obligations if it returns someone to a country where—due to the climate crisis—their life is at risk, or in danger of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment."

"The message in this case is clear: Pacific Island states don't need to be underwater before triggering those human rights obligations," Schuetze toldThe Guardian. "I think we will see those cases start to emerge."

Two members of the committee dissented, arguing Teitiota was entitled to protection by New Zealand's government.

"The conditions of life laid out by the author—resulting from climate change in the Republic of Kiribati, are significantly grave, and pose a real, personal, and reasonably foreseeable risk of a threat to his life," said Ambassador Duncan Laki Muhumuza of Uganda.

Prof. Jane McAdam of the Kaldor Center for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales agreed with Amnesty's assessment, saying that while the ruling was not in Teitiota's favor, "the committee recognized that without robust action on climate at some point in the future it could well be that governments will, under international human rights law, be prohibited from sending people to places where their life is at risk or where they would face inhuman or degrading treatment."

"Even though in this particular case there was no violation found, it effectively put governments on notice," she told The Guardian.

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What's not to like about the economy? Lowest unemployment in 19 years. The stock market is through the roof. Low income workers have made the biggest gains in wages. According to the Wall Street Journal: "The lowest-paid Americans saw weekly earnings grow more than 5% in the second quarter from a year earlier, more than the national median gain of 1.7% for all workers, according to a quarterly survey of households produced by the Labor Department. Workers with less than a high-school diploma saw their wages grow almost 6%, and younger workers’ pay grew almost 3%." So is trickle down really working?

The Fed stands by to give more money to the rich if the economy shows a sign of faltering. The Big Banks are too big to fail. Unlimited prosperity, right? Except all this economic growth is adding to rather than subtracting from global warming. More people are traveling while jets are spewing more jet fuel effluent into the atmosphere. The automobile industry has a huge investment in fossil fuel cars. Every year more carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere as oil still predominates in world markets. The American as well as the Chinese consumer economy is providing more middle class goodies each year which are tossed away creating more and more waste. Plastics are piling up in the oceans. More and more weedkillers are used to grow crops whose residues end up in human blood streams. Feed lot animals are fed a diet of antibiotics to make them grow quicker so they can be slaughtered sooner. This creates the situation in which they are not really useful for overcoming human diseases any more. The American way of life, which the whole world aspires to, is polluting the planet and despoiling the atmosphere, but it keeps the economy churning. Entrepreneurs are thinking up even more ways to sell us useless products and vapid entertainment.

The economy is predicated on waste, inefficiency and destructive weapons production including nuclear weapons. More and more money goes into the military-industrial complex to develop more and more expensive planes and battleships which are so complex they don't work half the time. But we are promised a computer fix after they alter a few lines of code. And all those people making a living off the military-industrial complex waste would be out of a job if peace broke out. All those people involved in the labyrinthine insurance industry would be out of a job if Bernie's Medicare for All came to fruition. The economy thrives on inefficiency and waste. If things were done rationally, so many people would be out of a job that the economy would grind to a halt.

Wall Street is not about to change its policy of promoting companies which seek maximum short term profits instead of sustainable growth that benefits all stakeholders including Mother Earth who in the final analysis is the most consequential stakeholder. But Americans and humans in general don't want to tighten their belts in order to save the planet. They would rather have short term profits and growth particularly if it can be tailored to fit into their lifespans. After their death all hell can break loose, but they won't be here to experience it. They had a good life at the expense of future generations. Ta ta, future babies. Trump will win because people care more about their present life than they do about the future generations of life on earth. Besides all those people in the military-industrial complex, which in the larger sense includes anyone who has ever been in the military, will vote for Trump because association with the military, whether pecuniary or not, represents masculine pride, virility and vanity. Ayn Rand would approve.

January 09, 2020

The new poor are basically millennials who have gone to college and acquired a huge amount of student loan debt. They were promised that graduating college would catapult them into the middle class. Instead, whatever job they were fortunate enough to get (and many of them landed at Starbucks or equivalent) does not pay enough to make debt payments and also provide the normal amenities of life. Most of their budget consists of paying interest on their debts. Student loan debt has soared from $260 billion in 2004 to $1.4 trillion in 2017; average debt jumped from $18,650 to $38,000 over that same period; and the number of people over 60 with student loan debt has quadrupled in the last decade from 700,000 to 2.8 million.

It used to be that the majority of the working class were either farmers or unionized manufacturing workers who were protected by unions. Then the propaganda machine got busy and told all those farm children that they would be much better off, instead of going to work on their father's farm, going to college instead. Many proudly became "the first in their family to graduate college." What did it matter that, in order to do so, they had to take out massive student loans. Workers, who had lost their unionized jobs, were told the same thing. Go to college and become part of the new (nonunionized) economy because everyone knows that college graduates don't need unions. While farmland may stretch far and wide, farmers and ranchers themselves make up just 1.3% of the employed US population, totaling around 2.6 million people. Today, there are about 2 million farms in operation in the US, a steep decline from 1935, when the number of farms peaked at nearly 7 million. Why milk cows and shovel manure when you can have a professional desk job!

Manufacturing historically created good paying jobs for workers without a college education, particularly for men. The jobs paid well enough so that women did not have to work when they had young children. Unions were strong and owners did not want to risk strikes in their factories due to large capital investments and significant on the job training. Such jobs are much less available in the post-2001 era in the U.S. though they remain available in Germany, Switzerland and Japan. So the solution we are told is for those workers and especially their childrenn since there is no future in being a worker in the manufacturing sphere, to go to college. It's the American way. Each generation has to move a step up the ladder, and the step up for children of manufacturing workers without college educations is to be "the first in their families" to get one. Of course this necessitates their taking on a huge amount of student loan debt, but no worries, this step up will make them better off even if their spouse has to work to afford a house and pay off student loan debt.

However, much student loan debt goes into default because the debt burden is just too big a load to carry. More than 1 million student loan borrowers each year go into default. For many, the payments are proving unmanageable. By 2023, nearly 40 percent of borrowers are expected to default on their student loans. That’s when a person has not made a payment toward their education debt in roughly a year, triggering it being sent to a third-party collection agency. They are les nouveaux pauvres, the New Poor. That's in contrast to les nouveaux riches, the likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg who have made billions off the high tech industry. But for many whose parents were farmers or manufacturing workers, they were sold a bill of goods that getting a college degree would not only resolve the stigma of being "uneducated," it would also land them a good paying job. Today most plumbers and electricians are doing better precisely because they don't have student loan debt.

Instead, many young people, and millennials especially, have not only a gargantuan load of student loan debt but credit card debt, and car loan debt as well. It's no surprise that the New Poor are mainly young people who can't afford either to buy a house or pay skyrocketing rents. Their parents and grandparents, however, are sitting pretty with assets consisting of a house which is skyrocketing in value and either a defined benefit pension (nonexistent today) or a 401k consisting of stocks which have also skyrocketed in value.They will naturally vote for Trump because of a booming economy (for them).

Meanwhile, the Democratic party, whose base used to consist of farmers and unionized workers, has lost them due to a change in demographics. Their new base naturally should be the New Poor, young people, millennials, student loan debtors and those who are concerned about the planet they're inheriting after climate change ravages it. They are turning to the progressive Democrats like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. They are smart enough to figure out that every other advanced industrialized country has a government sponsored public health care plane. They know that the rich are not paying their fair share of taxes which would alleviate them from some of the horrendous economic burdens they are now experiencing, that is if those increased taxes on the rich were used by government to pay for college and health care for all. They want government expanded to provide more benefits not contracted to the point where you could drown it in the bathtub which arch conservative Grover Norquist so famously said.

Les nouveaux pauvres want a Green New Deal, relief from student loan debt, a New Economy. They aren't committed to the capitalism which has made three billionaires more wealthy than 150 million lower income Americans. They want the elimination of the fossil fuel economy replacing it with renewable energy. They want the end of a military-industrial complex which has spent a trillion dollars on disastrous wars in the Middle East. There is a better way these New Poor millennials are finally figuring out, a way out of the mess created by short term profits and rugged individualism, a way that might just win back America's high moral position and leadership in the world.

Residents look on as flames burn through bush on January 04, 2020 in Lake Tabourie, Australia. (Photo: Brett Hemmings/Getty Images)

Powerful winds and sweltering heat on Saturday combined to intensify catastrophic bushfires across Australia, forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate their homes as firefighters struggled to contain the "virtually unstoppable" blazes ravaging large swaths of the continent.

At least two dozen people and an estimated half a billion animals have been killed by the fires, which have scorched more than six million hectares of land since September.

Australian authorities said Saturday and Sunday are likely to be two of the worst days since the fire season began late last year. "We are still yet to hit the worst of it," warned New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

As the Associated Pressreported Saturday, "the fire danger increased as temperatures rose to record levels across Australia on Saturday, surpassing 43 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit) in Canberra, the capital, and reaching a record-high 48.9 C (120 F) in Penrith, in Sydney's western suburbs."

#Canberra has reached 43.6C—a new hottest temperature record for any month. The previous Canberra records are 42.2C at Canberra Airport in 1968 and 42.8C at the now-closed Acton site in 1939. Observations at: https://t.co/8mMXbj9VGR

Prime Minister Scott Morrison—who has faced fierce criticism from residents for failing to take sufficient action to confront the blazes—announced the 3,000 Australian Defense Force Reserve troops Saturday to help fight the devastating fires.

Defense Minister Linda Reynolds told reporters that it is the first time reservists have been called up "in this way in living memory and, in fact, I believe for the first time in our nation's history."

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